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 published a Call for Proposals on January 30, 2025 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.

• Proposals will be reviewed by a panel of experts from IndiaAI and evaluated based on capability of the team, approach & strategy, timelines & milestones, use case development, scalability & financial viability.
• Proposals received till 15th of every month and evaluated within a month of receipt on a first cum first served basis.
• Proposals will be initially funded as direct funding, subject to milestone-based disbursements either in the form of grant or compute based credits, and subsequently via equity-based funding.
• 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 and selected proposals will receive formal funding or investment agreements.

This information webinar is open to startups, innovators, researchers, academia, non-profit entities and private enterprises who are interested in applying for the Call for Proposals for Foundation Models. It will provide an overview of the application and aim to address any questions towards submitting a proposal. 

• Introduce the challenge and process to apply for the challenge.
• Discuss opportunities and challenges and answer questions related to the selection process.
• Invite comments from participants on solving this challenge.

Date: February 11, 2025

Time: 11:00-11:45pm

Format: Virtual 

Duration: 45 minutes

Theme: Building India’s foundational AI models. 

Webinar link: Click here