The Government of India has approved the IndiaAI Mission to bridge the gaps in the existing AI ecosystem and enable India to emerge as a hub for developing AI technology and applications. The IndiaAI Mission is being implemented through seven pillars: IndiaAI Compute, IndiaAI Innovation Center, IndiaAI Dataset platform, IndiaAI Application development initiatives, IndiaAI FutureSkills, IndiaAI Startup Financing, and Safe & Trusted AI. Implementation of the IndiaAI Mission is being undertaken by IndiaAI, which is an Independent Business Division under Digital India Corporation in the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. 

Under the pillar of the IndiaAI Innovation Center, it is proposed to support Indian researchers, startups and entrepreneurs to build an Indian Foundational Models. Accordingly, IndiaAI invites proposals from startups, researchers, and entrepreneurs to collaborate on building state-of-the-art foundational AI models trained on Indian datasets. This initiative aims to establish indigenous AI models that align with global standards while addressing unique challenges and opportunities within the Indian context. The models can be Large Multimodal Models or a Large Language Model (LLM) or a Small Language Model (SLM) designed to support specific domains or applications. Our goal is to foster innovation, create societal impact at scale, and strengthen India’s position in the global AI ecosystem.

Objectives of the Call for Proposals

The envisioned foundational AI models should:

• Be trained on diverse and representative Indian datasets to ensure cultural, linguistic, and contextual relevance.
• Demonstrate capabilities to address India-specific challenges and opportunities across sectors like healthcare, education, agriculture, climate change, and governance.
• Support creative and scalable use cases with measurable societal and economic impact.
• Incorporate robust mechanisms for bias mitigation, fairness, and ethical AI principles.
• IP for the model will remain with the entity with a provision of a perpetual license for use by Government for public use.

Proposal Evaluation Criteria

Proposals will be evaluated based on the following parameters:

Capability of the Team:

• Expertise and track record in AI research, development, and deployment.
• Multidisciplinary experience in areas such as machine learning, natural language processing, computer vision, and data engineering.
• Prior experience in building models.
• Proven ability to collaborate and deliver high-impact projects.

Approach and Strategy:

• Clarity and innovativeness of the approach to building the foundational models.
• Strategy for dataset sourcing, cleaning, and preparation, particularly for underrepresented Indian contexts.
• Proposed architecture and methodology for training, optimizing, and scaling the model.
• Data Strategy: Quality, volume, diversity, and interoperability of datasets.
• Feasibility of using innovative approaches to reduce development time and cost.
• A clear plan for the continuous maintenance, evaluation, and enhancement of the foundation models, ensuring their adaptability to evolving needs, data, and technological advancements over time.

Timelines and Milestones:

• Aggressive but Realistic and well-defined timelines for model development.
• Clear milestones for progress tracking and evaluation.
• Selected teams will be required to be incorporated as a company within 30 days of selection, unless already registered.

Use Case Development:

• Creativity in identifying and elaborating use cases that address societal challenges at scale.
• Feasibility, impact, and scalability of the proposed applications.

Ethical Considerations:

• Commitment to ensuring fairness, inclusivity, and bias mitigation in the model.
• Adherence to data protection, security, and ethical AI guidelines.
• Compliance with DPDP Act, IT Act and all relevant regulatons

Scalability and Sustainability:

• Adherence to current industry benchmarks and best practices for model performance, ensuring high accuracy, fairness, and robustness.
• Potential for scaling the model’s impact across industries and regions.
• Long-term sustainability in terms of updates, maintenance, and usability.

Financial Viability:

• Budgetary alignment with the proposed funding mechanism (outright funding or venture debt or equity-based investment).
• Proposals can be cofinanced by Industry, VCs, Angel Investors, Non-Profits
• Entities that are already working on models under development can also apply – funding can be for Early Stage. Mid Stage or Late Stage entities 
• Cost-effectiveness and justification for resources required.

Funding and Equity Options

Proposals will be funded as below:

• Direct Funding: Initially, there will be direct financial support for model development, subject to milestone-based disbursements. This financial support can be in the form of a direct grant and/or compute credits for AI Compute. This funding can be in addition to the funds raised by the entity through grants from State Governments, Other Ministries or through other sources.
• Equity-Based Funding: Subsequently, IndiaAI may infuse further funding into the entity by take equity through mechanisms that will be finalised through mutual consent and agreement.

Format for Proposal Submission

Proposals must include the following sections:

Executive Summary 

• Brief overview of the proposal, highlighting the core idea, objectives, and expected outcomes.

Team Profile:

• Detailed profiles of the core team members, including expertise, past achievements, and relevant experience.

Project Plan:

• Approach and methodology for developing the foundational models.
• Strategy for dataset acquisition and preprocessing.
• Proposed architecture and training methodology.
• Timeline with clear milestones and deliverables. (Gantt Chart or similar)
• Continuous improvement strategy to ensure state-of-the-art performance with evolving technology advancements over time.

Data Management Plan:

• How much data does the organization have? 
• Elaborate from where you will source the data and do you need help from IndiaAI 

Use Case Development:

• Description of potential use cases and their societal impact.
• Feasibility and scalability of applications.

Ethical and Regulatory Compliance:

• Measures to ensure fairness, transparency, and privacy in the model.
• Adherence to ethical AI guidelines.

Budget and Financial Assessment:

• Detailed budget with a breakdown of costs (e.g., personnel, computational resources, datasets, and infrastructure).
• Funding required and preferred funding mechanism (outright funding or equity-based investment).
• Financial projections and sustainability plan.

Supporting Documents:

• Relevant publications, datasets, or supplementary materials (if available).

Submission Details

• Proposals should be submitted to tenders@indiaai.gov.in with the subject line: Call for Proposals: Foundational AI Models.
• Attach all supporting documents in PDF format.

Selection Process

• Proposals will be reviewed by a panel of experts from IndiaAI and evaluated based on the outlined criteria.
• Proposals received till 15th of every month will be evaluated by the panel of experts within a month of receipt of the proposal on a first cum first served basis.
• The Call for Proposals will be open till a sufficient number of proposals have been selected or 6 months from the date of the call for proposals, whichever is earlier.
• Shortlisted applicants will be invited for a detailed presentation.
• Selected proposals will receive formal funding or investment agreements.

Contact Information

For any queries or additional information, please contact:

Email: tenders@indiaai.gov.in