Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Science & Technology; Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Earth Sciences; MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr. Jitendra Singh as we speak hailed “BharatGen” as India’s first sovereign multilingual and multimodal AI driven Large Language Model, throughout his go to to IIT Bombay.
The Minister interacted with the core workforce of “BharatGen”, reviewed the continuing work underneath the undertaking, and additionally obtained an in depth presentation.
During the briefing, Prof. Ganesh Ramakrishnan, Professor-in-Charge of BharatGen, defined intimately how the mannequin capabilities, what it seeks to realize, and how it’s being developed as a nationwide AI asset for the long run. The presentation was attended by Prof. Shireesh Kedare, Director, IIT Bombay; Prof. Abhay Karandikar, Secretary, Department of Science and Technology; and Prof. Kasturi Saha from the Quantum Sensing & Metrology Hub, together with members of the BharatGen workforce.
Dr. Jitendra Singh was briefed that BharatGen is India’s first sovereign effort to create a Large Language Model that really displays the linguistic, cultural and social variety of the nation. Built to help over twenty-two Indian languages, BharatGen integrates three main modalities- textual content, speech and doc imaginative and prescient, in order that it will probably perceive, generate and interpret data in the identical method Indian residents naturally talk. The Minister was advised that this mission has been conceived within the spirit of constructing an inclusive digital future, the place each Indian language, dialect and regional context is represented within the nation’s AI capabilities. The undertaking aligns with the broader nationwide imaginative and prescient of constructing India a world chief in frontier applied sciences, an goal constantly emphasised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has repeatedly known as for creating expertise that’s rooted in India’s strengths, addresses India’s wants, and contributes to the world from an Indian lens.
The presentation highlighted that BharatGen is supported underneath the National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems (NM-ICPS) of the Department of Science and Technology, with ₹235 crore being channelled by the Technology Innovation Hub at IIT Bombay. The consortium, led by IIT Bombay, contains main establishments such as IIT Madras, IIT Kanpur, IIIT Hyderabad, IIT Mandi, IIT Hyderabad, IIM Indore, IIT Kharagpur and IIIT Delhi. Dr. Singh famous that the approaching collectively of such establishments alerts a brand new period of collaborative, mission-driven analysis, and displays India’s rising power in deep-tech innovation.
A key part of BharatGen- Bharat Data Sagar- was defined as one of the formidable knowledge initiatives undertaken within the nation. The Minister was knowledgeable that Bharat Data Sagar is being developed to make sure India’s full possession and management over its digital data sources. Through large-scale, India-centric knowledge assortment and curation, involving people, establishments and organisations throughout sectors, the initiative goals to construct datasets that seize India’s lived realities, cultural nuance, and regional variety. This ensures not solely correct AI efficiency but additionally strengthens India’s long-term digital sovereignty.
The Minister reviewed the BharatGen fashions launched thus far. The workforce offered Param-1, a foundational textual content mannequin of two.9 billion parameters educated on 7.5 trillion tokens, with over one-third of the coaching knowledge representing Indian content material. BharatGen has additionally constructed Speech fashions such as Shrutam, a 30-million-parameter Automatic Speech Recognition system, and Sooktam, a 150-million-parameter Text-to-Speech mannequin accessible in 9 Indic languages. Additionally, the undertaking has delivered Patram, India’s first document-vision mannequin with seven billion parameters, educated on 2.5 billion tokens, designed to grasp and interpret complicated paperwork in Indian codecs. Dr. Singh appreciated that these fashions collectively create a whole AI stack for India- textual content, speech and imaginative and prescient, able to supporting governance, {industry}, training, agriculture, healthcare and digital inclusion.
During the interplay, the workforce demonstrated proof-of-concept purposes constructed on BharatGen. These included Krishi Sathi, a voice-enabled WhatsApp advisory device that permits farmers to ask questions in their very own language and obtain on the spot help; e-VikrAI, which may routinely generate product descriptions from a single picture to assist small sellers increase their digital presence; and Docbodh, a doc Q&A platform powered by Patram that makes complicated texts comprehensible for residents. The Minister noticed that such purposes clearly present how AI can immediately enhance on a regular basis life and make public providers extra accessible to individuals on the final mile.
The workforce knowledgeable Dr. Singh that BharatGen is being strengthened by deep {industry} partnerships with IBM, Zoho, NASSCOM and a number of ministries, together with the Ministry of Water and Sanitation (WASH), as nicely as with state governments such as Maharashtra. These collaborations carry collectively India’s area experience, native datasets, and sector-specific challenges, enabling BharatGen to evolve right into a scalable, deployable and impactful AI ecosystem for the nation. The Minister famous that this whole-of-government and whole-of-industry strategy displays India’s dedication to constructing expertise that’s collaborative, clear and nationally owned—an strategy that resonates strongly with the Prime Minister’s name for “Technology for People, Technology by People and Technology of People.”
It was additionally highlighted that BharatGen has just lately obtained extra help of ₹1,058 crore from MeitY underneath the India AI Mission, increasing it right into a nationwide effort to construct India’s sovereign AI stack. This mixed help from DST and MeitY alerts the federal government’s long-term dedication to positioning India as a serious contributor to international AI improvement. Dr. Singh remarked that such missions display India’s readiness to drive the following wave of digital transformation, and reaffirm the nation’s skill to steer in sectors such as AI, quantum, area, cyber-physical methods, and deep expertise.
Dr. Singh appreciated the dimensions, ambition, and technical depth of the BharatGen initiative, describing it as a turning level in India’s journey towards technological self-reliance. He stated that BharatGen isn’t just a technological undertaking however a nationwide effort to make sure that the way forward for AI displays the aspirations, languages and lived experiences of 1.4 billion Indians. He additionally emphasised that initiatives like BharatGen embody the Prime Minister’s imaginative and prescient of empowering each citizen by science and expertise, constructing methods which can be inclusive, reliable, and domestically grounded, and making certain that India’s digital narrative is written by Indians themselves.
The Minister concluded by encouraging the BharatGen workforce to proceed constructing fashions which can be globally benchmarked but uniquely Indian, scalable but accessible, and technologically superior but easy sufficient for residents to learn from. He stated that BharatGen will play a defining function in shaping India’s digital decade and enabling the nation to contribute meaningfully to the worldwide AI panorama.