Indian science institute launches national multilingual AI company

Indian science institute launches national multilingual AI company

India's IIT Bombay has announced the formation of a new company called BharatGen Technology Foundation - wholly owned by the institute - to spearhead a national initiative in artificial intelligence (AI).

BharatGen aims to develop a large language model (LLM) that supports more than 22 Indian languages and works across multiple axes: Text, Voice, and Document/Vision Analysis . In doing so, India seeks to build a localized AI infrastructure that reflects the country's linguistic and cultural diversity, with potential for applications in areas such as agriculture, education, health, and digital government.

The initiative is "sovereign" - that is, the AI developed will be owned by India and developed on indigenous lines, rather than the traditional reliance on foreign models.