Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday chaired a roundtable meeting with leading Indian artificial intelligence (AI) start-ups, underscoring the government’s commitment to nurturing an ethical, inclusive and globally competitive AI ecosystem in the country.
The interaction, held at the Prime Minister’s residence at 7, Lok Kalyan Marg, brought together representatives of 12 Indian AI start-ups that have qualified for the AI for ALL: Global Impact Challenge at the upcoming India AI Impact Summit 2026, scheduled to be held next month.
The participating start-ups showcased their work across a wide spectrum of cutting-edge domains, including Indian language foundation models, multilingual large language models (LLMs), speech-to-text and text-to-audio/video technologies, generative AI for 3D content creation, engineering simulations, material research, advanced data analytics, and healthcare diagnostics and medical research.
During the discussions, the start-up leaders highlighted the rapid growth and immense future potential of India’s AI sector. They observed that the global centre of gravity for AI innovation and deployment is increasingly shifting towards India, citing the country’s strong talent pool, scalable digital infrastructure and supportive policy environment. The start-ups also commended India’s strong commitment to advancing the artificial intelligence ecosystem and placing the country firmly on the global AI map.
PM Modi emphasised the transformative role of artificial intelligence in society and noted that India’s hosting of the India AI Impact Summit would further strengthen the country’s leadership in the technology sector. He said startups and AI entrepreneurs are the “co-architects of India’s future” and stressed that India possesses a unique capacity for innovation combined with large-scale implementation.
Calling for a distinct Indian approach to AI, the Prime Minister said the country should present to the world a model that reflects the spirit of “Made in India, Made for the World.” He highlighted that trust in India is one of the nation’s greatest strengths and urged developers to ensure that Indian AI models are ethical, unbiased, transparent and firmly grounded in data privacy principles.
PM Modi also encouraged start-ups to promote local and indigenous content and regional languages through AI solutions, noting that India could emerge as a global leader in affordable, inclusive and frugal AI innovation. He assured the entrepreneurs of full government support in helping their AI models succeed both domestically and internationally.
The meeting was attended by CEOs and senior representatives from AI start-ups including Avataar, BharatGen, Fractal, Gan, Genloop, Gnani, Intellihealth, Sarvam, Shodh AI, Soket AI, Tech Mahindra and Zenteiq. Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw and Minister of State Jitin Prasada were also present at the roundtable.
