PM Modi to AI startups in India: Create LLMs for the benefit of the world

PM Modi Urges Indian AI Startups to Build Homegrown LLMs for Global Impact

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called on founders of Indian startups developing large language models (LLMs) to create made-in-India artificial intelligence solutions for global use, stressing that India should aim to lead—rather than merely participate in—the AI revolution.

At a closed-door meeting with the leadership of 12 AI startups, Modi emphasised the need to harness AI for public good, with a focus on addressing both Indian and global challenges, multiple founders told The Economic Times.

“The formal strategy discussion followed by an informal conversation was a deep dive into how India doesn’t just participate in the AI revolution but leads it,” said Ayush Gupta, chief executive of Genloop, which is developing a suite of small language models.

During the interaction, the Prime Minister also urged founders to embed Indian knowledge systems into AI research, rather than replicating approaches followed by developed economies. He encouraged the use of indigenous datasets and insights drawn from India’s heritage texts to generate new hypotheses and research directions.

Modi further highlighted the importance of leveraging Gyan Bharatam, a culture ministry initiative aimed at digitising and preserving India’s vast manuscript heritage. Founders were encouraged to tap into this resource to enrich AI models with culturally rooted and context-specific knowledge, said Ganesh Ramakrishnan, principal investigator at BharatGen, an academic consortium based at IIT Bombay.

The meeting underscores the government’s push to position India as a global leader in AI innovation, with an emphasis on originality, cultural depth and solutions that deliver societal impact.