Government Launches State-Supported Multimodal LLM for Indian Languages

Union Minister Jitendra Singh has launched BharatGen, a state-backed multimodal large language model (LLM) aimed at creating ethical, inclusive, and multilingual AI solutions rooted in Indian values. Designed to integrate text, speech, images, and more, BharatGen supports 22 Indian languages and is built on indigenously developed datasets. The initiative, developed under the National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems and implemented by IIT Bombay, seeks to empower sectors like healthcare, education, agriculture, and governance with regional-specific AI solutions. As the world’s first government-funded multimodal LLM project, BharatGen emphasizes data-efficient learning for languages with limited digital presence and aims to foster an ecosystem of generative AI research in India. It operates on an open-source architecture, allowing smaller businesses to utilize its technological and linguistic resources. BharatGen is part of the broader IndiaAI Mission, which has a budget of INR 10,372 Cr to support emerging AI startups and drive innovation.

Source link