As New Delhi prepares to host the India-AI Impact Summit 2026 from February 16 to 20 at Bharat Mandapam, it is also positioning itself as the first country in the Global South to convene a global, government-led conversation on artificial intelligence. The summit, which is anchored around the themes of People, Planet and Progress, is designed to move the AI debate beyond principles and into questions of deployment, governance and state capacity, especially how governments build, buy, and use AI systems at scale.
And it is within this larger global conversation that India’s governance and procurement policies for AI, about how it plans to regulate, deploy, and buy AI systems, will take shape.
The IndiaAI Mission, which started in 2024 with a budget of ₹10,372 crore, is the main focus of India’s approach to tackling artificial intelligence. The government uses this initiative as its main method to implement AI technologies throughout public services while building the fundamental systems needed for widespread usage.
IndiaAI Mission: The backbone of state-led AI deployment
The IndiaAI Mission is structured around seven deployment pillars: compute capacity, datasets, innovation centres, application development, future skills, startup financing, and safe and trusted AI. Together, these pillars are meant to address the full lifecycle of AI in government, from infrastructure and data to skills, governance and use cases.
A key focus is compute capacity, with the government planning access to large-scale AI infrastructure, including high-performance GPUs, to support public sector projects, startups and researchers. Alongside this, the mission emphasises creation and curation of high-quality datasets for public good applications, particularly in healthcare, agriculture and governance.
The deployment aspect of AI connects directly to the Digital India initiative because AI systems are increasingly being integrated into digital public infrastructure, along with data-driven decision-making systems, which are used by ministries, state governments, and local municipalities. The AI Impact Summit in itself has been positioned as a platform to showcase and assess these deployments, rather than focusing on announcing new policy.
From NPAI to IndiaAI: how the framework evolved
India’s current AI architecture builds on earlier institutional efforts. The National Program on Artificial Intelligence (NPAI), launched by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), functions as an umbrella initiative focused on social impact, inclusion and innovation.
NPAI rests on four pillars: a National Centre on AI, a Data Management Office, skilling in AI, and responsible AI. These elements now operate in parallel with, and are complemented by, the broader IndiaAI Mission, which expanded the scope in 2024 to include large-scale compute, startups, and application deployment.
The National Centre on AI conducts applied research and pilot projects, which test their results in key areas that include healthcare, agriculture, education and smart cities through partnerships with academic institutions and business organisations. These pilots feed into government deployment strategies rather than remaining standalone research projects.
How the government is procuring AI systems
India does not yet have a single, unified AI procurement policy. Instead, procurement is being shaped through revised norms, mission guidelines and existing public procurement platforms.
Under the IndiaAI Mission, MeitY revised eligibility conditions in 2024 to widen participation. Minimum turnover requirements for primary bidders were reduced from ₹100 crore to ₹50 crore, and for consortium members to ₹25 crore. Technical thresholds for AI compute procurement were also relaxed, including lower GPU performance and memory requirements, to allow more domestic firms to compete.
Procurement is aligned with Make in India rules, with preference for Class I and Class II suppliers, reinforcing local sourcing and domestic capacity building.
Separately, AI tools are being used to improve procurement processes themselves, including efficiency enhancements on the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) platform.
Budget support for India’s AI climate
The Union Budget 2026-27 has reinforced this direction, allocating funds for AI computation and skilling through the India Semiconductor Mission 2.0, therefore, complementing IndiaAI’s infrastructure push.
The India-AI Impact Summit will provide an operational platform for these ideas to be tested, refined and translated into action, including how public procurement will evolve to match India’s stated goals of safe, inclusive, and accountable AI integration across governance and public services.
