IIIT Hyderabad at forefront of BharatGen: Driving India’s sovereign AI ambitions

As India accelerates its push for sovereign AI under the banner of “AI for India and of India,” IIIT Hyderabad (IIITH) has emerged as a key player in the BharatGen consortium, a national mission in Generative AI backed by Rs 988.6 crore from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). The initiative aims to build inclusive, multi-modal AI solutions tailored to India’s linguistic and cultural diversity.

Spearheaded by IIT Bombay under the National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems (NM-ICPS), BharatGen brings together leading academic institutions including IIITH, IIT Mandi, IIT Kanpur, IIT Hyderabad, IIM Indore, and IIT Madras. At the heart of IIITH’s contribution is its Vision Language Model (VLM) team, led by Prof. RaviKiran Sarvadevabhatla, which is developing foundational models and applications that serve Indic languages and contexts.

One of the flagship contributions from IIITH is Patram, India’s first Vision Language Foundational Model for Indic documents. Trained on 7 billion parameters, Patram can interpret scanned and photographed documents, answer queries, and be fine-tuned for domain-specific applications such as medicine and law. “We built Patram from scratch, curating high-quality data to ensure robust performance across diverse use cases,” said Prof. RaviKiran.

Complementing Patram is eVikrAI, a Vision Language Model designed for Indic e-commerce. Developed by the same team, eVikrAI simplifies product cataloguing by translating and vocalizing descriptions in multiple Indian languages, reducing the need for manual input and enhancing accessibility for sellers across the country.

These innovations stem from IIITH’s Center for Visual Information Technology (CVIT), one of India’s premier labs for vision research. “Our students and researchers are constantly pushing boundaries, presenting at top-tier forums and contributing to cutting-edge developments,” Prof. RaviKiran noted. He emphasized the importance of building an ecosystem through strategic partnerships, especially for domain-specific models in areas like science and law.

Looking ahead, IIITH plans to enhance Patram’s capabilities, including multi-page document processing and text grounding. Prof. RaviKiran acknowledged that scaling these models requires substantial compute and funding, making MeitY’s recent allocation a timely boost. While the models are open source, the training methodologies are yet to be shared. “We hope to make those public soon to foster transparency and collaboration,” he added.

IIITH Director Prof. Sandeep Shukla called BharatGen a project of “strategic national importance,” with potential applications in finance, agriculture, legal services, and cybersecurity. “We’re proud to be shaping India’s AI sovereignty through our contributions,” he said.

Echoing this sentiment, Prof. C V Jawahar, Dean (R&D) and head of CVIT, described BharatGen as a “unique experiment” in building powerful AI models through academic collaboration. “Even in its early stages, the project has shown immense promise,” he remarked.

Telangana IT Minister Duddilla Sridhar Babu praised IIITH’s leadership in AI research, citing its work in Bhashini and Patram as transformative.

“This landmark investment will empower BharatGen to deliver mission-mode innovations that truly reflect India’s linguistic and cultural diversity,” he said.