India’s IT sector now employs over 6 million; govt unveils AI mission for global leadership
The data, shared by Minister of State for Electronics and IT Jitin Prasada, underscores not just the scale of India’s digital economy but also the ambitious plans underway to dominate the next wave of AI innovation.
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India’s information technology industry continues to be a cornerstone of its economy, now employing over 6 million professionals and generating more than $250 billion in annual revenue, according to the latest update tabled in Parliament.
The data, shared by Minister of State for Electronics and IT Jitin Prasada, underscores not just the scale of India’s digital economy but also the ambitious plans underway to dominate the next wave of AI innovation.
India’s AI Game Plan: A 7-Pillar Strategy At the heart of this ambition lies the IndiaAI Mission, launched in March 2024. The strategy is aligned with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision to democratise technology, address India-specific challenges, and boost employment and innovation.
“India is among the top countries in AI skills and capabilities,” said Prasada, citing India’s strong showing in the Stanford AI Index and its status as the second-largest contributor to AI projects on GitHub.
The mission is built on seven strategic pillars, all geared towards building an inclusive and sovereign AI ecosystem:
IndiaAI Compute Capacity: Affordable access to high-end GPUs for startups, MSMEs, and researchers.
IndiaAI Foundation Models: Building India-centric Large Multimodal Models (LMMs) trained on local datasets and languages.
AIKosh: A unified data platform aggregating datasets from government and non-government sources for training robust models.
IndiaAI Application Development Initiative: AI solutions for climate change, healthcare, governance, disaster management, agriculture, and learning disabilities.
IndiaAI FutureSkills: Creating an AI-ready workforce with more graduates, postgraduates, PhDs, and AI labs in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities.
IndiaAI Startup Financing: Funding support for Indian AI startups.
Safe and Trusted AI: Developing responsible governance frameworks to ensure ethical and secure AI development and use.
India’s approach to AI goes beyond big-city startups or Silicon Valley collaboration. It is deeply focused on India-centric problem-solving—from agricultural solutions for farmers to assistive tools for people with learning disabilities. By investing in foundational models and data infrastructure rooted in Indian realities, the country is attempting to build sovereign AI capabilities rather than relying solely on imported tech.
This positioning is crucial as AI becomes a geopolitical and economic differentiator globally.
