# India’s Foundation-Model White Paper — Sovereignty via Portfolio, Not One LLM

Times of AI Desk · 2026-03-13 · Policy

[https://timesof.ai/2026/03/india-releases-whitepaper-on-indigenous-foundation-models](https://timesof.ai/2026/03/india-releases-whitepaper-on-indigenous-foundation-models)

> PSA Office white paper (March 13) maps IndiaAI Mission push for indigenous FMs across 22 scheduled languages: ₹10,371.92 crore Mission (Mar 2024), Compute Portal + AI-Kosh, CFP (506 proposals) → Sarvam/Soket/Gnani/Gan (Phase 1) + eight more (Phase 2). Snapshot of public-private portfolio — not a single national model launch.

Most “sovereign AI” stories imply one national champion model. India’s proprietary frame in the PSA white paper is a **portfolio**: frontier LLMs **and** efficient SLMs on shared compute/data, tuned to **22 scheduled languages** and sector apps — reducing foreign-model under-representation risk without waiting for a single winner.

**Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser** released **“Advancing Indigenous Foundation Models”** (March 13). Context: most widely used models trained abroad under-represent Indian linguistic/cultural diversity → bias and weak local fit in health, education, agriculture, governance. Delivery vehicle: **IndiaAI Mission** (Cabinet March 2024; outlay **₹10,371.92 crore** over five years; MeitY) — **India AI Compute Portal** and **AI-Kosh** for shared compute and datasets.

**Call for Proposals** (Jan 2025): **506** proposals by April 2025. Phase 1: **Sarvam AI, Soket AI, Gnani AI, Gan AI** (multilingual text, voice, TTS). Phase 2 (Sep 2025): eight more initiatives spanning all 22 scheduled languages. Named emerging work includes Sarvam-105B, Gnani Inya VoiceOS (15+ languages), Fractal Vaidya 2.0, Tech Mahindra Project Indus with NVIDIA (Hindi-first education), Zoho Zia LLM, CoRover BharatGPT (12 languages), and IIT Bombay BharatGen stack (Param-1, Shrutam, Sooktam, Patram). Governance backdrop: India AI Governance Guidelines (2025), DPDP Act, IT Rules 2021; India-centric benchmarks and AI-Kosh non-personal datasets. Selected models expected via AI-Kosh for startups/research.

## Claims vs checks

White paper and Mission figures are **government primary** (PSA PDF; CNBC TV18 March 14 summary). Builder product claims (param counts, language coverage) are as listed in the paper/coverage — not independently bench-audited here.

## Limits

- White paper ≠ shipping schedule for every named prototype.
- Shared compute access still rationed in practice.
- “Indigenous” weights can still depend on foreign chips and toolchains.

## Sources

- [PSA: “Whitepaper on Advancing Indigenous Foundation Models”](https://psa.gov.in/CMS/web/sites/default/files/publication/WP-Foundation%20Model%20New%20Edited%20version%20%281%29.pdf) (March 13, 2026); [AI mission initiatives](https://www.psa.gov.in/ai-mission-initiatives).
- [CNBC TV18 coverage](https://www.cnbctv18.com/technology/india-developing-multiple-model-building-efforts-across-text-and-speech-white-paper-on-ai-policy-ws-l-19868262.htm) (March 14, 2026).
- Additional policy summaries referencing the March 13 release.