IBM and BharatGen have announced a new collaboration aimed at advancing artificial intelligence adoption in India. The partnership will focus on developing AI models that are specifically designed for India’s linguistic and cultural context.
The initiative seeks to create multimodal and language-specific AI models, with applications across sectors such as education, agriculture, banking, healthcare, and citizen services. As part of the collaboration, IBM’s expertise in data governance and model training technology will be combined with BharatGen’s national mandate to build inclusive, India-centric large language models (LLMs).
The two organizations plan to develop solution templates for Indian use cases using BharatGen’s models alongside IBM’s AI technologies like IBM Granite Models. Demonstrations and domain-specific templates will be created on IBM Watsonx and Red Hat OpenShift AI platforms. Additionally, they aim to establish a scalable data pipeline using open source tools from IBM, tailored with Indic capabilities for improved data preparation workflows. A governance framework based on IBM’s enterprise-scale model development methodology will be implemented to ensure responsible model development.
New benchmarks suitable for Indian domains and languages are also planned, along with joint research into emerging model architectures leveraging both organizations’ experience in generative AI.
“At BharatGen, we have been building sovereign AI models and the ecosystem that reflects the linguistic richness, cultural nuances, and diverse needs of our people. This collaboration with IBM allows us to bring cutting-edge global research, scalable architectures and inclusive systems for India” said Prof. Ganesh Ramakrishnan of BharatGen. “With IBM’s strength in enterprise-grade platforms and our commitment to public-good AI, we are on a path to drive transformative solutions for empowering India’s digital journey across domains such as agriculture, finance, education, and governance.”
“At IBM, we are committed to support the creation of open, trusted AI that solves real-world problems,” said Sandip Patel, Managing Director of IBM India and South Asia. “Through our collaboration with BharatGen, we aim to advance sovereign AI capabilities that reflect India’s diversity and deliver meaningful impact across sectors.”
BharatGen is working on LLMs and foundation models intended to meet both national priorities and commercial needs in areas including agriculture, education, healthcare, national security, and finance. A central focus is on representing underserved Indian languages beyond the most widely spoken ones so as to promote broader digital participation.
BharatGen operates as a consortium under IIT Bombay’s Technology Innovation Hub. It is funded by the Indian government through the Department of Science and Technology (DST) with goals such as developing efficient AI models for Indian languages; creating multilingual data repositories; fostering public-private partnerships; strengthening India’s talent pool; supporting startups; serving diverse needs; promoting self-reliance; and building solutions of national importance.
IBM provides hybrid cloud infrastructure as well as consulting expertise globally. The company supports clients in more than 175 countries—including key industries like financial services—using its hybrid cloud platform built around Red Hat OpenShift.
