Relevance: UPSC GS-3 (S&T, Economy, Digital Infrastructure); Source: The Hindu

The India AI Impact Summit 2026 in New Delhi marked the launch of IndiaAI Mission 2.0, signaling India’s transition from a technology consumer to a global “AI Builder.” Central to this is the concept of Sovereign AI—ensuring national control over the entire AI stack (hardware, data, and models) to protect data sovereignty and drive strategic autonomy.

1. Strategic “AI Factories” & Infrastructure

India is building large-scale physical infrastructure through unique Public-Private Partnerships:

• Tata-OpenAI Partnership: OpenAI is the anchor tenant for Tata’s HyperVault (100 MW facility, scalable to 1 GW), enabling advanced models to run locally with low latency.
• Nvidia’s AI Factories: Collaborating with Yotta (Shakti Cloud), L&T, and E2E Networks to deploy over 20,000 Nvidia Blackwell GPUs. L&T is building a “Gigawatt AI Factory” to host sovereign workloads.
• Affordable Compute: The government is adding 20,000 GPUs to the national computer bank, offering access at ₹65/hour—roughly 1/3rd of global costs.
• Conceptual Clarity: Inference vs. Training: While “Training” builds the AI’s brain (expensive), “Inference” is the act of using the model to get answers. India’s Mission 2.0 prioritizes “Inference Focus” to make AI applications cheap and accessible for the masses.

2. The Vision: IndiaAI Mission 2.0

Mission 2.0 focuses on making AI accessible to every citizen, similar to how UPI changed payments.

• The “UPI of AI” Model: The government is building a platform of ready-to-use AI solutions for key sectors like healthcare, agriculture, and education.
• Accessibility for MSMEs: Instead of hiring expensive engineers, small businesses can simply “plug and play” these secure AI tools to optimize their operations.
• BharatGen: Developing indigenous foundational models trained on Indian datasets and 22 official languages to bridge the linguistic digital divide.
• e-Shram Integration: AI helps 315 million informal workers access social security and build micro-credentials.

UPSC Value Addition Box

Term/Scheme	Explanation / Purpose
Sovereign AI	National autonomy over AI infrastructure and data to prevent foreign “technological gatekeeping.”
MANAV Vision	An ethical framework ensuring AI is Moral, Accountable, National-sovereign, Authentic, and Value-based.
Statutory Licensing	A proposed DPIIT rule requiring AI firms to pay royalties into a central fund for using copyrighted Indian data.

Q. Consider the following statements regarding the “IndiaAI Mission 2.0”:

1. It aims to create a “UPI for AI” platform to offer subsidized AI solutions specifically for MSMEs and rural sectors.
2. The “MANAV Vision” is a technical protocol for increasing the data transfer speed between AI Factories.
3. The BharatGen initiative aims to develop foundational AI models trained across all 22 scheduled languages of India.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

(a) 1 only

(b) 1 and 3 only

(c) 2 and 3 only

(d) 1, 2, and 3