BharatGen (India's AI LLM): What It Is and Its Purpose

• 26 Nov 2025
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On 25 Nov 2025, the Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Science and Technology, Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Earth Sciences and Minister of State for the Prime Minister's Office, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr. Jitendra Singh, praised "BharatGen" as India’s first sovereign multilingual and multimodal AI-driven Large Language Model during his visit to IIT Bombay. 

He interacted with the core team behind "BharatGen" reviewed the ongoing work on the project and received a detailed presentation. During the briefing, Prof. Ganesh Ramakrishnan, Professor-in-Charge of BharatGen, detailed how the model functions, its objectives and its development as a national AI asset for the future. 

The presentation was attended by Prof. Shireesh Kedare, Director of IIT Bombay; Prof. Abhay Karandikar, Secretary of the Department of Science and Technology; and Prof. Kasturi Saha from the Quantum Sensing and Metrology Hub, along with members of the BharatGen team.

What is BharatGen?

BharatGen is India’s first sovereign effort to create a large language model that truly reflects the nation’s linguistic, cultural and social diversity, as briefed by the IIT team. It is built to support over 22 Indian languages. BharatGen integrates three major modalities, i.e., text, speech and document vision. These modalities allow the model to understand, generate and interpret information in such a way that it mirrors how Indian citizens would naturally communicate.

This initiative’s goal is to build an inclusive digital future where every Indian language, dialect and regional context is represented in the country’s artificial intelligence capabilities. It aligns with the broader national vision of making India a global leader in frontier technologies - this is an objective strongly advocated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The PM, on a consistent basis, has called for the development of technology that is rooted in India’s strengths, addresses India’s needs and contributes to the world from an Indian perspective. 

BharatGen is supported under the National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems (NM-ICPS) of the Department of Science and Technology, with Rs. 235 crore allocated through the Technology Innovation Hub at IIT Bombay. 

A key component of BharatGen, known as Bharat Data Sagar, is one of the most ambitious data initiatives undertaken in the country. Bharat Data Sagar is being developed to ensure India’s complete ownership and control over its digital knowledge resources. 

Through large scale, India centric data collection and curation that involves individuals, institutions and organizations across various sectors, this initiative’s aim is to build datasets that capture India’s lived realities, cultural nuances and regional diversity. This approach not only ensures accurate AI performance but also strengthens long-term digital sovereignty of the nation.

Purpose of BharatGen

BharatGen’s purpose is to develop indigenous generative AI foundational models in language, speech and computer vision in order to address the unique socio-cultural and linguistic diversity of India. This initiative seeks to strengthen the AI ecosystem in the country as well as promote data sovereignty. 

It intends to make AI accessible to all citizens, support public services and drive innovation within the country’s critical sectors such as healthcare, education and agriculture. BharatGen is not merely a technological project. Rather, it is a national effort to make sure that the future of AI reflects the aspirations, languages and experiences of approx. 1.4 billion Indians.

The initiative embodies the Prime Minister's vision of empowering every citizen via science and technology, building inclusive and trustworthy systems that are rooted within local contexts and making sure that India's digital narrative is crafted by its very own people.

Source: Press Information Bureau (PIB)