As artificial intelligence reshapes economies and societies, India is asserting a clear and confident voice on how AI should be built, governed, and scaled. Through the IndiaAI Mission, the country is advancing a people- first, trust-led approach to innovation. In this interview, Shikha Dahiya, Joint Director and Mission Director of the IndiaAI Mission, speaks to Garima Pant and Nijhum Rudra of Elets Technomedia about how India is turning the promise of AI for All into action and shaping the global AI agenda.

India today speaks of “AI for All” as both a technological and societal vision. How does the IndiaAI Mission translate this philosophy into action?

India’s approach to artificial intelligence is deeply rooted in the belief that technology must serve people, not the other way around. The IndiaAI Mission operationalises the vision of AI for All by focusing on inclusion, affordability, accessibility, and trust as core design principles.

With a Cabinet-approved outlay of `10,371.92 crore over five years, the Mission invests in the foundational layers of the AI ecosystem, compute, datasets, skills, applications, and governance, so that AI capabilities are not concentrated in a few institutions or corporations, but are available to startups, researchers, MSMEs, public institutions, and state governments across the country.

This people-first orientation ensures AI becomes a tool for last-mile service delivery, economic opportunity, and national resilience, aligned with India’s long-term vision of Viksit Bharat @2047.

A year after their release, the IndiaAI Governance Guidelines are increasingly referenced in global AI policy discussions. What distinguishes India’s approach to AI governance in an evolving international landscape?

India’s AI governance approach is principle-based, pragmatic, and pro-innovation. Unlike technology- specific or compliance-heavy regimes, the IndiaAI Governance Guidelines articulate seven sutras, including Trust is the Foundation, People First, Innovation over Restraint, Fairness & Equity, Accountability, Understandable by Design, and Safety, Resilience & Sustainability.

These sutras are technology- agnostic, adaptable across sectors, and grounded in India’s social, economic, and cultural realities. The framework deliberately avoids premature regulation of the underlying technology, instead governing AI applications through existing laws, supported by voluntary measures, techno-legal tools, and institutional oversight.

This balanced model allows India to move fast on adoption, while remaining firm on safety, accountability, and public trust, an approach increasingly resonating across emerging economies and the Global South.

How does the Safe and Trusted AI pillar anchor the success of the IndiaAI Mission?

Safe and Trusted AI is not one pillar among many; it is the foundation on which the entire Mission rests. Without trust, AI adoption stalls, regardless of how advanced the technology is.

Through this pillar, India has established the AI Safety Institute to conduct risk assessments, safety testing, bias audits, and technical evaluations, and to support regulators and industry with evidence-based guidance. The focus is on real-world harms, such as deepfakes, algorithmic bias, privacy violations, and national security risks, rather than hypothetical scenarios.

By embedding safety into design, deployment, and governance, India ensures that innovation scales responsibly and sustainably, without eroding citizen confidence.

India has made significant in ve s tm ent s in AI infrastructure. How is this changing the innovation landscape?

Access to compute and data is the single biggest enabler of AI innovation. Under the IndiaAI Mission, over 38,000 GPUs have already been onboarded and made available at highly subsidised rates, dramatically lowering entry barriers for startups, researchers, and academic institutions.

Also Read | India’s AI Vision: Centres on People, Planet and Progress

Simultaneously, AIKosh, India’s national AI dataset platform, has onboarded thousands of datasets and models across more than 20 sectors, enabling permission-based, trusted data sharing. This combination of affordable compute and high-quality datasets is allowing Indian innovators to move from experimentation to deployment at scale.

As a result, India is strengthening its position as a global AI innovation hub, while retaining sovereignty over critical digital infrastructure.

What challenges did discussions around the IndiaAI ecosystem highlight, particularly at platforms like the AI Impact Summit?

The conversations have been candid and constructive. Key challenges include uneven AI readiness across sectors and regions, limited awareness of AI risks, the rapid spread of deepfakes and misinformation, and the global concentration of AI resources in a few geographies.

Another major challenge is capacity building at scale, ensuring that government officials, regulators, law enforcement agencies, and small businesses are equipped to understand, procure, and govern AI responsibly.

The consensus emerging from these discussions is clear: India must build its own governance models, datasets, institutions, and safety mechanisms, rather than importing solutions that may not align with its scale, diversity, and developmental priorities.

The AI Impact Summit is expected to convene global leaders and policymakers. Why is this Summit significant for India and the global AI discourse?

The AI Impact Summit is strategically important because it positions India not just as a technology adopter, but as a global thought leader in responsible and inclusive AI. As the first global AI summit hosted in the Global South, it brings together governments, industry, academia, startups, researchers, and civil society to shape a shared understanding of how AI should be governed, deployed, and scaled for real-world impact.

For the Global South, the Summit offers an alternative narrative, one that prioritises development, equity, trust, and access alongside innovation. The Summit’s deliberations, organised through thematic working groups, are expected to inform future policy pathways and a collective leaders’ declaration.

The Summit is therefore not just an event; it is a signal of India’s intent to lead by example in shaping the future of AI globally.

How does IndiaAI ensure that AI growth translates into real societal outcomes rather than remaining a high-tech pursuit?

IndiaAI is deeply outcome-oriented. The Mission supports sector-specific applications in healthcare, agriculture, education, governance, climate services, and inclusion technologies. From AI-enabled diagnostics and crop advisory systems to multilingual digital platforms like Bhashini, the focus is on solving real problems at population scale.

Complementing this is a strong push on FutureSkills, supporting thousands of PhD scholars, postgraduates, and undergraduates, and extending AI education and data labs to Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities. This ensures that AI capability is not limited to elite institutions but is embedded across India’s workforce and public systems.

What is your message to global policymakers and innovators engaging with India’s AI ecosystem?

India is demonstrating that it is possible to scale AI responsibly without slowing innovation. Our message to the world is simple: trust, inclusion, and innovation are not competing goals; they are mutually reinforcing.

Also Read | India’s AI Moment Scale, Trust, Inclusion

Through the IndiaAI Mission, governance guidelines, and platforms like the AI Impact Summit, India is offering a replicable model for countries seeking to harness AI for growth while safeguarding societal values. We invite global partners to collaborate, co-create, and learn together as we shape the next chapter of the AI revolution.

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