The Union Minister recently unveiled the BharatGen Multimodal Large Language Model (LLM) during the BharatGen Summit.
Overview of BharatGen
BharatGen represents India’s first indigenously developed, government-funded Artificial Intelligence (AI) initiative focused on creating a Multimodal Large Language Model (LLM) tailored to Indian languages.
The project is being developed under the National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems (NM-ICPS) and is spearheaded by the TIH Foundation for IoT and IoE at IIT Bombay.
Its primary goal is to transform AI innovation by accommodating India’s vast linguistic and cultural landscape. Supported by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), the initiative brings together a collaborative network of top-tier academic institutions, researchers, and technology experts.
BharatGen combines text, speech, and image inputs to deliver AI-powered solutions across 22 Indian languages, aiming to address local challenges in sectors such as healthcare, education, agriculture, and governance.
The initiative is being implemented through a network of 25 Technology Innovation Hubs (TIHs), with four hubs elevated to Technology Translational Research Parks (TTRPs) to accelerate impact.
The mission is guided by four foundational pillars:
- Advancing technology,
- Fostering entrepreneurship,
- Building human capital, and
- Encouraging international partnerships.
Salient Features of BharatGen
- Multilingual and multimodal AI models
- Training based on indigenous (Bhartiya) datasets
- Open-source accessibility
- Promotes a generative AI research ecosystem within India