As artificial intelligence transitions from a futuristic concept to a foundational driver of economic and societal transformation, the focus is rapidly shifting from adoption to ownership. For India, this means not just leveraging global technologies but building homegrown capabilities that reflect its unique linguistic, cultural, and developmental contexts.
At the centre of this shift are Technology Innovation Hubs (TIHs), strategic platforms established under the National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems (NM-ICPS). These hubs are redefining the innovation landscape by seamlessly connecting academic research with industry needs, enabling the journey from lab-scale ideas to market-ready solutions.
Today, with over 25 TIHs operational across premier institutions, India is steadily building capacity in frontier domains such as artificial intelligence, robotics, quantum technologies, and smart manufacturing. Backed by significant public investment, these hubs are not only accelerating research but also fostering the creation of India-specific datasets, intellectual property, and scalable solutions, a critical step towards technological self-reliance.
As AI systems become increasingly dependent on large volumes of contextual data, the urgency to develop indigenous, domain-rich datasets has grown sharper. For a country as diverse as India, this is not just a technical necessity but a strategic imperative, ensuring that future AI systems are inclusive, relevant, and deeply aligned with real-world Indian scenarios.
A broader ecosystem is taking shape
Across the country, several IITs and institutions are contributing to this transformation:
- At IIT Bombay, research in AI, healthcare informatics, and smart mobility continues to push the boundaries of applied technology, supported by strong industry partnerships and startup incubation.
- IIT Kharagpur has been actively integrating digital infrastructure with institutional governance, with initiatives like ERP IIT Kharagpur streamlining academic and administrative processes, while student-driven bodies like TSG IIT KGP foster an innovation culture at the grassroots level.
- Meanwhile, the Reserve Bank Innovation Hub is playing a pivotal role in fintech innovation—supporting research in digital payments, financial inclusion, and AI-led regulatory technologies.
Combinely, these efforts signal a larger national movement: from fragmented innovation to a cohesive, mission-driven ecosystem.
IIT Mandi’s multimodal leap: Building AI for India, from India
Amid this national momentum, the Technology Innovation Hub at IIT Mandi is making a significant stride in advancing multimodal AI and collaborative intelligence.At the heart of this effort is the newly launched Multimodal Intelligence for Real-World Applications (MI-RA) lab—an industry-research-ready facility aimed at integrating text, vision, audio, and structured data into unified AI systems. This emerging paradigm is widely seen as the future of AI, enabling systems to interpret context more holistically and respond more intelligently.
The initiative was unveiled during a three-day conclave on collaborative intelligence, bringing together policymakers, researchers, and industry leaders to deliberate on the next frontier of AI.
From isolated AI to collaborative intelligence
Industry veteran Kris Gopalakrishnan, Co-Founder of Infosys and Chairman of the Mission Governing Board, NM-ICPS, highlighted a crucial shift underway and said, “The move from standalone AI models to collaborative intelligence ecosystems, where machines integrate multiple sensory inputs and align closely with real-world applications.”
This transition is particularly important for India, where solutions must navigate linguistic diversity, socio-economic complexity, and varied infrastructure realities.
MI-RA lab: A first-of-its-kind infrastructure
The MI-RA facility is designed as a high-performance, collaborative AI ecosystem, featuring:
- Advanced computing infrastructure
- Multimodal data aggregation systems
- Industry-academia co-creation spaces
- Real-world prototyping environments
More importantly, it focuses on building a “Bharatiya dataset”—a repository of India-centric multimodal data that can power next-generation AI applications across sectors like:
- Healthcare diagnostics
- Smart agriculture
- Governance and public service delivery
- Manufacturing and Industry 4.0
- Education and skilling
A strategic push for indigenous AI
According to Somjit Amrit, CEO of the TIH at IIT Mandi, the MI-RA lab represents a decisive move toward human-centred AI built for India. By synchronising diverse data modalities, the initiative aims to create context-aware intelligence systems capable of addressing complex, real-world challenges.
Echoing this vision, Prof Shubhajit Roy Chowdhury, Project Director, Technology Innovation Hub, IIT Mandi, emphasised the urgent need for domain-specific data repositories to fuel deep-tech innovation. He noted that India’s current limitations in structured, high-quality datasets pose a bottleneck—and MI-RA seeks to address exactly that.
Why multimodal AI matters now
Traditional AI systems, largely reliant on single data streams, often fall short in capturing real-world complexity. Multimodal AI, on the other hand, enables:
- Richer context understanding (e.g., combining speech with visual cues)
- Improved accuracy and decision-making
- Enhanced human-machine interaction
- Scalable applications across industries
For a country like India, this could mean AI systems that understand dialects, interpret visual environments, and respond contextually, at scale.
The road ahead: From capability to leadership
India’s ambition is no longer limited to being a consumer of global technologies. With initiatives like MI-RA and the expanding TIH ecosystem, the country is positioning itself as a creator of next-generation, human-centric AI solutions.
The convergence of policy support, institutional excellence, and industry collaboration is laying the groundwork for a robust innovation economy, one that aligns closely with national missions like Make in India and Viksit Bharat 2047.
If sustained, this momentum could enable India to not just participate in the global AI race but set new benchmarks for inclusive, context-aware, and scalable intelligence systems.
