AI models should reflect Indian context: PM Modi
Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired a roundtable meeting with a dozen Indian artificial intelligence (AI) start-ups on Thursday, ahead of the India AI Impact Summit 2026 scheduled for next month, and emphasised the need to ensure that Indian AI models are ethical, unbiased, transparent, and based on data privacy principles.
The 12 start-ups — selected under the India AI Mission to develop AI models tailored to India’s linguistic, social and economic context — briefed the PM on their ongoing work and the progress of their models.
In the meeting at his residence, the PM said India should develop AI models that reflect the idea of “Made in India, Made for the World”, while promoting local and indigenous content and regional languages, according to a government release. The PM also emphasised that Indian AI systems must be ethical, unbiased and transparent, and respect data privacy principles, it added.
“Talked AI with youngsters from the Indian StartUp world. It was a memorable and insightful interaction, in which they shared their vision and work on how India is transforming the world of AI. It is commendable how these StartUps are working on diverse fields such as e-commerce, marketing, engineering simulations, material research, healthcare, medical research and more,” Modi later said in a post on X.
The 12 start-ups — Sarvam, Gan, Gnani, Soket AI, Intellihealth (NeuroDx), Shodh AI, Genloop, Tech Mahindra, Avataar, BharatGen, Fractal, and Zenteiq — are working across a wide range of areas, including Indian language and multilingual large language models (LLM), speech-to-text and text-to-video tools, healthcare diagnostics, material research, engineering simulations, and advanced data analytics.
Participating CEOs and representatives of the start-ups described the interaction as motivating and clarifying. “We got to interact with the Prime Minister directly and see a side of him that is deeply engaged with both technology and the country at large,” Siddharth Panwar, CEO of NeuroDx, said. “His understanding of tech, combined with his broader perspective on India, was inspiring for all of us.”