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Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has sanctioned Rs 2,000 crore for the IndiaAI Mission for 2025-26, which is nearly a fifth of the scheme’s total outlay of Rs 10,370 crore.
The fresh allotment for the next fiscal year comes as the government has shortlisted 10 companies that will provide nearly 19,000 graphics processing units (GPUs) for setting up artificial intelligence (AI) data centres in the country, and fund building foundational models.
As per the expenditure budget documents, the IndiaAI Mission was sanctioned at Rs 551.75 crore during the Union Budget 2024-25, but that was underutilised and revised to Rs 173 crore. For 2025-26, Rs 2,000 crore has been sanctioned for the scheme.
This comes after the Indian government announced it was planning to fund the development of one or more foundational models, days after a Chinese AI lab released DeepSeek, a low-cost foundational model.
The government has also selected 10 companies to supply 18,693 GPUs — high end chips needed to develop machine learning tools — that can go into developing a foundational model. This is more than the initial aim of the IndiaAI Mission, under which the government was looking to procure 10,000 GPUs.
The government will set up a new centre of excellence for AI for education with an outlay of Rs 500 crore, Sitharaman said during speech.
She said: “I had announced three centres of excellence in artificial intelligence for agriculture, health and sustainable cities in 2023. Now, a centre of excellence in artificial intelligence for education will be set up with a total outlay of Rs 500 crore.”
Sitharaman also revealed plans for five National Centres of Excellence for Skilling, designed to equip youth with industry-relevant expertise. “These centres will be set up with global partnerships to support Make for India, Make for the World manufacturing,” the minister stated. The initiative will cover curriculum design, training of trainers, a skill certification framework, and regular assessments.
These moves come amid the meteoric rise of AI across the world, and concerns that it could displace a number of jobs.
Arguing that India’s workforce in low-skill and low-value-added services remains vulnerable to AI, the Economic Survey 2024-25 released Friday called for the creation of “robust institutions,” which could help transition workers to medium- and high-skilled jobs, where AI can augment their efforts rather than replace them.
“Although the impact of AI on labour will be felt across the world, the problem is magnified for India, given its size and its relatively low per capita income,” the Survey said.
The Survey proposed the concept of “stewarding institutions,” which would be “agile, crosscutting across sectors and up to date on the latest developments, so that they are equipped to identify both opportunities and threats. Stewarding institutions will have to be responsible for designing an approach that delicately balances public welfare without stifling innovation”.
It clarified that stewarding “does not imply placing restrictions on innovation or dictating a narrow set of applications for technology,” but means that policymakers should “demonstrate a certain degree of cognisance when it comes to emerging technologies, so that when the need arises, they stand well-placed to mitigate any adverse effects that emerge as by-products of technological applications”.
