India’s artificial intelligence mission is set to take a major leap forward. At the AI Impact Summit 2026 in New Delhi on September 18, IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw announced that eight organisations, including IIT Bombay, Tech Mahindra and Fractal Analytics, have been chosen to build foundational large language models under the IndiaAI Mission.
The most ambitious project will be led by IIT Bombay through its BharatGen consortium, which has been tasked with developing an AI model with one trillion parameters. This would make it one of the largest models in the world. To support the effort, the IndiaAI Mission has approved funding worth Rs 988.6 crore.
In artificial intelligence, parameters are internal variables that help a model learn patterns and connections within data. A higher number of parameters often leads to better performance and deeper understanding of language. For India, creating a trillion-parameter model represents a key milestone in building home-grown AI capabilities that can stand alongside global leaders.
The organisations selected include Avataar AI, IIT Bombay Consortium BharatGen, Fractal Analytics Limited, Tech Mahindra Ltd, Zeinteiq Aitech Innovations, Genloop Intelligence Pvt Ltd, NeuroDX (Intellihealth) and Shodh AI. Each will contribute to the creation of large language models designed for different applications.
Tech Mahindra welcomed the announcement, highlighting its work on Project Indus, an Indic language model. In a statement, the company said it was “proud to be recognised” as part of the IndiaAI Mission. “This announcement comes on the back of building our own and India’s own Indic LLM, Project Indus. Built completely in-house and at frugal cost, the journey of having Project Indus as open source to creating sovereign LLMs has been a learning and rewarding experience.”
This builds on earlier phases of the Mission. In May 2025, three startups — SoketAI, Gnani.ai and Gan AI — were chosen to create India’s first foundational models, while in April 2025, four others, including Sarvam AI, were tasked with developing specialised systems. To ensure progress, the government has also expanded access to GPUs, which are crucial for training such large-scale models.
Minister Vaishnaw said the progress so far has been encouraging. “The models that were selected earlier are progressing really well and I am confident that by the time the AI Impact Summit gets underway in February 2026, India will have a model or models ready,” he noted.
The government is also preparing an AI framework with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and the Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser to provide clear guidelines on the responsible development and use of AI in the country.
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