NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday called for India’s artificial intelligence (AI) models to actively promote local and indigenous content as well as regional languages. He also stressed that AI developed in India must be ethical, unbiased, transparent, and grounded in strong data privacy principles.
Modi made the remarks while chairing a roundtable with heads of 12 Indian AI start-ups ahead of the AI Impact Summit 2026, scheduled in India in February. The start-ups that qualified for the AI for ALL: Global Impact Challenge at the summit presented their ongoing work and shared ideas on the future of AI in India. The roundtable aimed to strengthen collaboration between the government and innovators in the country’s rapidly expanding AI ecosystem.
According to an official statement from the Prime Minister’s Office, the start-ups at the meeting are engaged in a diverse range of areas. These include Indian-language foundation models, multilingual large language models, speech-to-text, text-to-audio, and text-to-video technologies, and 3D content creation for e-commerce, marketing, and personalised content. They are also working on engineering simulations, materials research, advanced analytics for data-driven decision-making across industries, and healthcare diagnostics and medical research.
During the meeting, Modi underlined the importance of AI in driving societal transformation and highlighted India’s role as a growing hub for global technology. He said that start-ups and AI entrepreneurs are “co-architects” of India’s future, noting that the country has immense capacity for innovation and large-scale implementation.
He urged the sector to present a distinctive Indian AI model to the world, reflecting the principle of “Made in India, Made for the World”. The Prime Minister also highlighted India’s global trust as a significant advantage and called for Indian AI to lead in affordability, inclusivity, and frugal innovation.
Leaders of the AI start-ups welcomed the government’s commitment to the sector, noting the rapid growth of India’s AI ecosystem and the country’s rising prominence as a centre for innovation and deployment. They said India now provides a strong and enabling environment for AI development, positioning the country firmly on the global AI map.