PM Modi Engages Indian AI Innovators, Pushes Ethical and Indigenous AI Vision

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday held an extensive interaction with leading Indian artificial intelligence innovators, signalling a decisive shift towards building ethical, indigenous, and globally competitive AI models. The meeting comes at a crucial time as India prepares to host the India AI Impact Summit 2026, positioning itself as a key voice in global AI governance and innovation.

The interaction, hosted at the Prime Minister’s residence, brought together founders and leaders from select AI start-ups that are working on cutting-edge technologies ranging from generative AI and large language models to healthcare diagnostics and advanced analytics. The discussions reflected India’s growing ambition to shape the future of AI through innovation that is not only technologically advanced but also socially responsible.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi chairs the roundtable with Indian AI start-ups at his residence in New Delhi. | Firstpost

Emphasis on Ethical, Transparent and Inclusive AI

During the meeting, Prime Minister Modi underscored that artificial intelligence must be guided by strong ethical principles. He stressed that AI systems developed in India should be transparent, unbiased, privacy-centric and accountable, ensuring that technology serves humanity rather than undermines trust or social harmony.

Highlighting India’s diversity, Modiji called for AI models that promote indigenous content and regional languages, arguing that global leadership cannot be achieved by merely replicating Western frameworks. Instead, India must develop solutions that reflect its cultural depth, linguistic plurality and societal needs, thereby offering the world a distinct and inclusive AI paradigm.

Start-Ups as Drivers of India’s AI Future

The Prime Minister described India’s AI entrepreneurs as “co-architects of the nation’s future,” acknowledging their role in driving innovation and economic transformation. Start-up founders shared insights into their work, including the challenges of accessing large, diverse datasets, the need for high-quality compute infrastructure, and the importance of predictable regulatory frameworks.

Several innovators highlighted progress in building multilingual AI models capable of understanding and generating content in Indian languages—an area where India holds a natural advantage due to its vast linguistic ecosystem. The discussion also touched upon the importance of ensuring affordability and accessibility, especially for sectors such as healthcare, education and governance.

India AI Impact Summit 2026: A Global Platform

The roundtable meeting sets the stage for the India AI Impact Summit 2026, scheduled to take place in New Delhi in February. The summit is expected to bring together global policymakers, technologists, researchers and industry leaders to deliberate on the future of AI, with a strong focus on responsible innovation and Global South perspectives.

India aims to use the summit to showcase its progress in AI research and deployment, while also shaping international discourse on ethical standards, governance frameworks and equitable access to emerging technologies. Initiatives linked to the summit, including global AI challenges and innovation showcases, are expected to highlight real-world solutions developed by Indian start-ups.

IndiaAI Mission and Indigenous Compute Push

The broader vision discussed during the meeting aligns with the government’s ambitious IndiaAI Mission, which has received significant financial backing to strengthen the domestic AI ecosystem. The mission focuses on building indigenous compute capacity, democratizing access to datasets, supporting foundational AI models, and encouraging responsible AI deployment across sectors.

India has already begun work on homegrown foundational models such as BharatGen, designed to support multimodal and multilingual AI development. These efforts are intended to reduce dependence on foreign technologies while enabling Indian researchers and start-ups to innovate at scale.

A Human-Centric AI Model for the World

India’s approach to AI increasingly emphasizes human-centric development, combining technological advancement with social responsibility. By prioritizing ethics, inclusion and cultural relevance, the country seeks to offer a model of AI growth that resonates beyond its borders, particularly with developing nations navigating similar challenges.

Government officials and industry leaders believe this strategy could allow India to emerge as a trusted global partner in AI innovation, capable of balancing economic growth with societal well-being.

The MGMM Outlook

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s interaction with Indian AI innovators reinforces India’s intent to build a technology ecosystem that is both globally competitive and deeply rooted in ethical responsibility. The emphasis on transparency, accountability, privacy, and inclusion signals a conscious move away from merely adopting external AI frameworks toward shaping models that reflect India’s cultural, linguistic, and social realities. By encouraging indigenous AI development and multilingual capabilities, the government is positioning innovation as a tool for broad-based empowerment rather than elite advantage, especially in critical sectors such as healthcare, education, and governance.

This engagement also highlights the strategic alignment between policy, start-ups, and national missions such as the IndiaAI Mission and initiatives like BharatGen. Strengthening domestic compute capacity, democratizing access to data, and supporting foundational models underline a long-term vision of technological self-reliance. As India prepares to host the India AI Impact Summit 2026, the focus on human-centric and responsible AI places the country as a credible voice for the Global South, offering an alternative model of AI leadership that balances innovation with societal trust and global equity.

(Sources: Firstpost, Times of India, Economic Times)