India is on track to attract as much as $150 billion in investments into artificial intelligence infrastructure by the end of 2026, according to Ashwini Vaishnaw, Union Minister for Information Technology, Railways and Information and Broadcasting. Speaking in an exclusive interview with CNBC TV18 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Vaishnaw said the country has already secured commitments worth nearly $70 billion, with a further $50 to $80 billion expected to materialise over the next year, reflecting the accelerating momentum behind India’s AI ambitions.
The minister highlighted that the past year has marked a turning point for India’s AI ecosystem, with several global technology leaders making large, long-term bets on the country. Google has committed $15 billion to establish an AI hub in Visakhapatnam, while Microsoft has raised its India investment plans to more than $20 billion through 2030. Amazon has also announced a $35 billion investment over the same period, signalling growing confidence among hyperscalers in India’s role as a global AI and cloud hub.
Alongside international investments, India is pushing ahead with its domestic AI capabilities. Vaishnaw confirmed that India’s homegrown large language models will be unveiled at the upcoming India AI Summit. At least two foundational models, being developed by Sarvam AI and BharatGen, are expected to be launched ahead of the event, marking a key milestone in the country’s effort to build sovereign AI technologies.
Looking further ahead, the government plans to develop 12 sovereign foundational AI models under the IndiaAI Mission. Each model is expected to range between 50 and 120 billion parameters and will be designed to operate on relatively smaller GPU clusters, enabling low-cost AI deployment at population scale. According to Vaishnaw, early testing of these models in live environments has shown “very encouraging” results in real-world use cases.
To support this effort, 12 startups and organisations have already been selected to work on these foundational models. The minister also stressed the importance of industry participation beyond capital investment, urging technology companies to collaborate more closely on skilling initiatives and curriculum development. Building a robust AI talent pipeline, he said, will be critical to sustaining India’s long-term leadership in artificial intelligence.
Taken together, the scale of planned investments, global partnerships, and domestic innovation efforts position India as one of the fastest-growing and most ambitious AI infrastructure markets worldwide.
