Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday urged India’s artificial intelligence startups to ensure their models are ethical, unbiased, transparent, and rooted in data-privacy principles, urging founders to shape a distinctly Indian approach to the technology that can lead globally. Chairing a roundtable at his residence at 7, Lok Kalyan Marg, he told participants that startups and AI entrepreneurs are “the co-architects of India’s future” and stressed the country’s capacity for both innovation and large-scale implementation. He said India should present a unique AI model to the world that reflects the spirit of "Made in India, Made for the World". [1]

Modi encouraged startups to focus on affordable and inclusive AI and on “frugal innovation” that can be exported from India to the world, while also promoting local and indigenous content and regional languages through their models. The Prime Minister framed such choices as both a strategic opportunity and a moral imperative, calling for transparency and fairness in algorithmic design. [1]

Twelve Indian startups that have qualified for the AI for ALL: Global Impact Challenge attended the roundtable to present their work. They described projects spanning Indian-language foundation models and multilingual large language models; speech-to-text, text-to-audio and text-to-video systems; generative 3D content for e-commerce, marketing and personalised content creation; engineering simulations and materials research; advanced analytics for industry decision-making; and healthcare diagnostics and medical research. [1]

The meeting came as India prepares to host the India AI Impact Summit 2026 next month. Government communications and industry briefings give slightly different schedules: the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and Indian diplomatic missions state the summit will be held on February 19–20, 2026 in New Delhi, while a report by the India Brand Equity Foundation describes a multi-day event from February 16–20, 2026. All official materials describe the gathering as the first global-scale AI summit to be hosted in the Global South and say it will focus on themes including Safe and Trusted AI, Inclusion, Human Capital, Resilience, Innovation and Efficiency, Democratizing AI and AI for Economic Development and Social Impact. [4][5][3][7]

The AI for ALL: Global Impact Challenge, a flagship initiative tied to the summit, aims to identify and accelerate inclusive, scalable AI innovations worldwide. According to JICA, the challenge invites submissions from students, researchers, professionals and start‑ups; it offers awards of up to INR 2.5 Crore for the top winners and travel support for 20 finalists to attend the summit. [6]

Start-up leaders at the roundtable praised the government’s commitment to building an enabling AI ecosystem and said India’s innovation centre of gravity is shifting towards the country, with an expanding market for development and deployment of AI solutions. They argued that a combination of local-language capabilities, cost‑effective engineering and large-scale implementation experience gives India an edge in delivering people‑centred AI at scale. [1]

Modi’s intervention and the government’s summit pitch underscore a policy aim to position India not merely as a consumer of global AI platforms but as a source of models and solutions tailored to distinct social, linguistic and developmental contexts. Officials and industry participants say that emphasising data governance, transparency and inclusion will be central to convincing international partners that India’s approach is both ethically grounded and commercially exportable. [1][3][4]

##Reference Map:

  • [1] (Lokmat Times) - Paragraph 1, Paragraph 2, Paragraph 3, Paragraph 6, Paragraph 7
  • [3] (IBEF) - Paragraph 4, Paragraph 7
  • [4] (Indian Embassy Netherlands / MeitY) - Paragraph 4, Paragraph 7
  • [5] (Consulate General of India, Chicago) - Paragraph 4
  • [6] (JICA) - Paragraph 5
  • [7] (Times of India) - Paragraph 4

Source: Noah Wire Services