The collaboration aims to help promising Indian startups develop, validate and scale technologies for domestic and international markets. It will focus on areas including artificial intelligence, hybrid cloud and quantum computing.

Under the agreement, participating startups will be able to access IBM’s technology expertise, mentorship, skills development programmes and opportunities to engage with enterprises. The partnership is also intended to help startups strengthen their commercialisation strategies and connect with relevant industry stakeholders.

Deep-tech startups often face challenges in moving research and prototypes into commercially viable products. These challenges can include access to advanced computing infrastructure, specialised technical expertise, funding and opportunities to test technologies in real-world business environments.

The collaboration seeks to address some of these barriers by connecting startups with technology resources and a wider enterprise network.

IBM’s expertise in enterprise AI, hybrid cloud and quantum computing will support the programme’s technology-focused activities. MeitY Startup Hub will contribute its national innovation network and engagement with India’s startup ecosystem.

The initiative is expected to encourage closer interaction between technology developers, researchers, businesses and potential customers. Such engagement can help startups better understand market requirements and identify opportunities to apply emerging technologies across industries.

Artificial intelligence and quantum computing are attracting increasing interest because of their potential applications in areas such as healthcare, manufacturing, financial services, cybersecurity and scientific research. Hybrid cloud infrastructure can also help businesses manage computing resources and deploy digital services.

The agreement reflects wider efforts to strengthen India’s domestic innovation capabilities and support technology-led entrepreneurship.

By combining technical support with mentorship and enterprise engagement, the partnership aims to help high-potential startups move beyond early-stage development and build solutions with broader commercial applications.

Speaking after releasing the World Development Report 2026 — The Promise of Artificial Intelligence — Vaishnaw said the proposed consultation paper would examine key issues surrounding the rapidly expanding use of AI in India.

The consultation is expected to focus on AI safety, cybersecurity, potential benefits and risks associated with the technology. The government also plans to address harmful applications, including deepfakes, while ensuring that the benefits of AI reach different sections of society.

Vaishnaw said India’s approach would focus not only on regulating potential risks but also on ensuring that AI is used to improve productivity and create wider social and economic benefits.

The minister highlighted the potential of AI in sectors including agriculture, healthcare and education. According to him, wider adoption of the technology could help improve services and create new opportunities for businesses and institutions.

He also stressed the need to make AI accessible to startups, researchers, academia and students. The government wants India to build greater capacity to develop and use AI while addressing concerns related to safety and misuse.

The announcement comes as AI systems are becoming increasingly integrated into areas ranging from public services and education to healthcare and business.

The forthcoming consultation paper is expected to provide a basis for discussions with industry, researchers, technology companies and other stakeholders on an appropriate regulatory approach for AI in India.

The government’s approach will seek to balance innovation with safeguards, particularly in areas where AI-generated content and increasingly autonomous systems could create new risks.

India needs to build stronger domestic capabilities in critical technologies while continuing to remain open to global technology and international supply chains, Electronics and Information Technology Secretary S. Krishnan said on Thursday.

Speaking at the 13th Annual Public Affairs Forum of India 2026 in New Delhi, Krishnan said India should develop sufficient domestic capacity to protect itself against possible technology denial and supply disruptions.

He said technological self-reliance should not mean trying to manufacture everything within the country. Instead, India needs to establish a strong position in strategically important parts of global technology value chains.

The approach covers areas ranging from electronic products such as mobile phones and laptops to software and digital platforms.

Krishnan also pointed to India’s growing electronics manufacturing capabilities. He said the country is manufacturing nearly 99.2 per cent of domestic mobile phone demand.

India’s mobile phone exports have also expanded significantly, with the United States becoming an important market. Krishnan said India exported more than $20 billion worth of mobile phones to the US last year.

At the same time, he noted that India remains dependent on other countries for several technologies and components. He said the country’s strategy should therefore combine access to global technology with the development of domestic capabilities.

The comments come as India continues to strengthen its electronics and technology manufacturing ecosystem, including semiconductor production, electronics design and digital platforms.

The government has been seeking to increase India’s role in global technology supply chains while reducing vulnerabilities in areas considered strategically important.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday warned that the weaponisation of technology and critical minerals could create obstacles to shared economic development, calling for greater inclusivity in access to emerging technologies.

Addressing the second day of the BRICS Summit in New Delhi, Modi said countries need to build resilience against disruptions affecting global supply chains and ensure that technological progress benefits a wider section of society.

Critical minerals have become increasingly important for modern industries because they are required for technologies ranging from electric vehicles and renewable energy systems to advanced electronics and defence applications.

The concentration of production and processing of several critical minerals in a limited number of countries has raised concerns about supply-chain vulnerabilities. Any disruption in access to these resources can affect industries dependent on advanced technologies.

Modi also highlighted the importance of preventing technology from becoming a tool that restricts development. He called for an approach that encourages wider participation and access to innovation among BRICS countries.

The Prime Minister’s remarks came during a session focused on resilience, innovation, cooperation and sustainability. These areas have become increasingly important as countries deal with geopolitical tensions, supply-chain disruptions and rapid technological changes.

Artificial intelligence, digital technologies and advanced manufacturing are transforming economies, but differences in access to technology remain a major challenge for developing countries.

Greater cooperation among BRICS members could support research, innovation and technology-sharing while helping countries build more resilient supply chains.

The discussions also underline the growing connection between science, technology and economic security. Access to critical minerals and advanced technologies is increasingly viewed as an important part of national development strategies.

India has been seeking greater international cooperation in areas such as artificial intelligence, critical minerals, clean energy and advanced technology.

The BRICS discussions are expected to contribute to efforts aimed at strengthening technological cooperation while ensuring that innovation remains accessible and supports sustainable development.

CHENNAI: Bodhan AI, a Centre of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence for Education incubated at IIT Madras, has launched four AI models designed to support Indian languages and build technology for multilingual education.

Developed in partnership with AI4Bharat, the models cover speech recognition, optical character recognition, machine translation and text-to-speech. Depending on the application, the systems can work across between 22 and 27 Indian languages.

The models are being released as open-weight systems and through hosted application programming interfaces, allowing educational institutions, researchers and technology developers to build applications without having to develop similar AI capabilities from the beginning.

The initiative is part of efforts to create a common technology layer for education applications that can work across India’s diverse linguistic environment.

Bodhan AI is also developing tools that use these models for students and teachers. A multilingual student tutor is designed to help learners with academic questions, while a teacher assistant is intended to support activities such as lesson planning, assignments and evaluation.

The AI systems are being developed with education-focused applications in mind, including support for Indian languages, regional accents and classroom-related content.

The initiative could help make digital learning tools more accessible to students who are more comfortable using Indian languages rather than English.

Multilingual AI has become an important area of technology development in India as digital education expands across different regions and language communities.

By making the underlying models available for wider use, the initiative also aims to encourage researchers, educational technology companies and other developers to create applications suited to Indian requirements.

The launch marks another step towards developing AI systems specifically for India’s linguistic and educational needs.

Lensless cameras do not have a lens which, in a conventional camera, acts as a focusing element allowing the sensor to capture a sharp photograph of the scene. Due to the absence of this focusing element, the lensless camera captures a multiplexed or globally blurred measurement of the scene. IIT Madras and Rice University researchers have developed a deep learning algorithm for producing photo-realistic images from the blurred lensless capture.

Taking out a lens can lead to the miniaturization of a camera. Researchers globally are trying to find substitutes for lenses, says IIT Madras statement.

In 2016, Prof. Ashok Veeraraghavan’s lab at Rice University, U.S., registered success in making a lensless camera. They were able to develop a low-cost and low-weight ultra-thin lensless camera. The function of lenses is to focus the incoming light. In these newly developed lensless cameras, a thin optical mask was placed just in front of the sensor at a distance of approximately 1 mm. However, because of the absence of focusing elements, the lensless camera captures blurred images restricting their commercial use.

Researchers have now developed a computational solution to this problem. The team developed a de-blurring algorithm, which can correct the blurred images taken from a lensless camera. The findings were presented as a paper in the prestigious IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision and an extended version appeared in IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence.

This Research was led at IIT Madras by Dr. Kaushik Mitra, Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering. The research team included Salman Siddique Khan, Varun Sundar and Adarsh VR from IIT Madras. Prof. Ashok Veeraghavan led the Rice University team which included Dr. Vivek Boominathan and Mr. Jasper Tan.

“Existing algorithms to deblur images based on traditional optimization schemes yield low-resolution ‘noisy images.’ Our Research team used Deep Learning to develop a reconstruction algorithm called ‘FlatNet’ for lensless cameras which resulted in significant improvement over traditional optimization-based algorithms. FlatNet was tested on various real and challenging scenarios and was found to be effective in de-blurring images captured by the lensless camera”, Dr. Kaushik Mitra said.

Further, Dr. Mitra said, “Lensless imaging is a new technology and its true potential in solving imaging/vision problems has not been exploited completely. Therefore, we are working on designing newer and better lensless cameras using data-driven techniques, devising efficient algorithms for doing inference on lensless captures and looking into interesting and important applications like endoscopy and smart surveillance, among other areas, where one can fully realize the benefits of lensless imaging.”

This research was funded by National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER and NSF EXPEDITIONS, U.S., Neural Engineering System Design (NESD) – Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), U.S., National Institutes of Health (NIH) Grant, U.S., and Qualcomm Innovation Fellowship India 2020.

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Keywords: Algorithm, Lensless Camera, Miniature Camera, Indian Institute of Technology, IIT Madras, Rice University, Vision applications, Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), Security, Smart Wearables, Robotics

To increase awareness about the usage of FOSS in governance and Government functioning, and adoption of FOSS, a virtual roundtable discussion ‘Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in Government’ was organized by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) in collaboration with Omidyar Network India on April 22, 2021.

Speaking at the occasion, Shri Ajay Sawhney, Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, appraised the steps taken by MeitY like Policyfor Open Source Software in 2015 to Open Source Collaborative development of Aarogya Setu. “I am delighted to see the interest in further advancing the adoption of FOSS in Government among a wide range of Government leaders, Academia and FOSS innovators. MeitYwill continue to play a key role in this journey. We are also pleased to announce the #FOSS4GOV Innovation Challenge, which will harness the innovation potential of the FOSS community and start-ups to solve for critical issues in GovTech. More such efforts will be forthcoming.”

Making a presentation on the Potential of FOSS in India, Shri Varad Pande, Partner, Omidyar Network India, said “We see FOSS as a key component of GovTech 3.0, which is about building secure and inclusive Open Digital Ecosystems (ODEs) that harness the potential of social innovators to help solve India’s toughest problems. We are excited to see MeitY advancing the adoption of FOSS in Government in a thoughtful and strategic manner and are delighted to partner with them on this journey.”

Shri Abhishek Singh, President and CEO, NeGD and CEO, MyGov,and MD, Digital India Corporation moderated sessions wherein stakeholders shared their experiences on successful deployment of FOSS-based platforms like Aadhaar and UPI in India and highlighted best-practices and learnings for all participants. Presentations were made on successful FOSS led innovations adopted by Governments of Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Kerala as well as open source enterprise solutions. The speakers includedrepresentatives from EkStep Foundation, Samagra Governance, Civic Data Lab, International Centre for Free and Open Source Software (ICFOSS), and Frappe Technologies (creators of ERPNext). The collaborative potential of FOSS was palpable in the discussion with FOSS community members, innovators, and academia. Representatives from State Governments shared their experiences about building tech platforms, and reflected on challenges where open source technology could be most useful.

The Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology also announced a #FOSS4GOV Innovation Challenge to accelerate adoption of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) In Government. The #FOSS4GOVInnovation Challenge calls upon FOSS innovators, technology entrepreneurs and Indian Startups to submit implementable open source product innovations in CRM and ERP with possible applications for Govtech in Health, Education, Agriculture, Urban Governance etc. Participants to be eligible for incubation support, prize money, mentorship by domain experts, institutional support from eminent organizations for incubation of ideas and listing of solutions on GeM.Further details about the challenge and how to participate will be shared soon by the Ministry through MyGov and MeitY Startup Hub.

The roundtable provided a forum for eGov leaders of States, Central Ministries and Agencies to share their experiences, best practices and learnings in using FOSS in GovTech platforms and applications. Participants shared perspectives on the way forward to drive adoption of FOSS in Government, and the announcement of the #FOSS4GOV Innovation Challenge was welcomed as an important step forward in this direction.

Computing infrastructure has already been installed in four premier institutions and installation work is in rapid progress in 9 more. Completion in of Phase II of NSM in September 2021 will take the country’s computing power to 16 Petaflops (PF). MoUs have been signed with a total of 14 premier institutions of India for establishing Supercomputing Infrastructure with Assembly and Manufacturing in India. These include IITs, NITs, National Labs, and IISERs.

Infrastructure planned in NSM Phase I has already been installed and much of Phase II will be getting in place soon. Phase III, initiated this year, will take the computing speed to around 45 Petaflops. This will include three systems of 3 PF each and one system of 20PF as a national facility.

The National Supercomputing Mission was launched to enhance the research capacities and capabilities in the country by connecting them to form a Supercomputing grid, with National Knowledge Network (NKN) as the backbone. The NSM is setting up a grid of supercomputing facilities in academic and research institutions across the country. Part of this is being imported from abroad and part built indigenously. The Mission is being jointly steered by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and implemented by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Pune, and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru.

PARAM Shivay, the first supercomputer assembled indigenously, was installed in IIT (BHU), followed by PARAM Shakti, PARAM Brahma, PARAM Yukti, PARAM Sanganak at IIT-Kharagpur IISER, Pune, JNCASR, Bengaluru and IIT Kanpur respectively.

A new dimention has now been added in India’s march towards leadership position in supercomputing with the convergence of HPC and Artificial Intelligence (AI). A 200 AI PF Artificial Intelligence supercomputing system has been created and installed in C-DAC, which can handle incredibly large-scale AI workloads increasing the speed of computing-related to AI several times. PARAM Siddhi – AI, the high-performance computing-artificial intelligence (HPC-AI) supercomputer, has achieved global ranking of 62 in TOP 500 most powerful supercomputer systems in the world, released on 16th November 2020.

The mission has also created the next generation of supercomputer experts by training more than 4500 HPC aware manpower and faculties till date. To expand the activities of the HPC training, four NSM Nodal Centres for training in HPC and AI have been established at IIT Kharagpur, IIT Madras, IIT Goa and IIT Palakkad. These centres have conducted online training programs in HPC and in AI.

Powered by the NSM, India’s network of research institutions, in collaboration with the industry, is scaling up the technology and manufacturing capability to make more and more parts in India. While in Phase I, 30 percent value addition is done in India that has been scaled up to 40 percent in Phase II. India has developed an Indigenous server (Rudra), which can meet the HPC requirements of all governments and PSUs.

The three phases will provide access to High-Performance Computing (HPC) Facilities to around 75 institutions and more than thousands of active researchers, academicians working through Nation Knowledge Network (NKN) – the backbone for supercomputing systems.

Researchers led by Dr Pawan Goyal have developed a digital infrastructure for the efficient processing of Sanskrit texts, by effectively combining state-of-the-art machine learning techniques and traditional linguistic knowledge from Sanskrit. The proposed framework is based on Energy-based models and it enables the encoding of relevant linguistic information as constraints.

“Processing of Sanskrit texts poses several challenges owing to the high lexical productivity of the words, free word order in poetry, euphonic assimilation of sounds at the word boundaries and phonemic orthography followed in writing. Keeping these in mind, we proposed a generic graph-based framework that takes advantage of the free word-order nature of the language. Further, we make use of linguistic insights from the traditional Sanskrit grammar for learning the feature function and applying the relevant constraints.” explained Dr. Goyal.

“Our proposed framework substantially reduces the training data requirements to as low as 10%, as compared to that of the neural state-of-the-art models. In all the Sanskrit-related tasks discussed in the work, we either achieve state-of-the-art results or ours is the only data-driven solution for those tasks, added Dr Goyal.”

This work is accepted for publication in the Computational Linguistics journal published by the MIT Press. This work has been carried by research scholar Dr. Amrith Krishna, currently, a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Cambridge, supervised by Dr. Pawan Goyal. The paper currently addresses the tasks of word segmentation, morphological parsing, dependency parsing and poetry to prose conversion of Sanskrit text.

The classical language has a rich literary tradition spanning more than two millennia that encapsulates the cultural ethos of this civilizational nation. Works in Sanskrit, numbering more than 30 million extant manuscripts, include extensive epics, subtle and intricate philosophical, mathematical, and scientific treatises, and rich literary, poetic, and dramatic texts.

The proposed AI-based system, used in conjunction with interactive tools such as the Sanskrit Heritage reader, can aid the users in the easier analysis of these manuscripts with word-by-word analysis and translation, the relation between words, poetry to prose conversion, search and question answering, etc.

The research team is now actively collaborating with several external research groups to extend the application of the proposed system for automatic speech recognition and question-answering in Sanskrit.

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Keywords: Digital resources, languages, regional languages, Sanskrit,Computational processing, linguistics, Indian Institute of Technology, IIT Kharagpur, Artificial Intelligence, AI

About 500 experts from all over the country as well as from abroad are participating in this Congress. They will make presentations on their research-oriented findings on the focal theme. The aim is to explore how digital mapping innovations like ‘Drone’, ‘Artificial Intelligence’, which can now generate large-scale maps with higher accuracy (up to 10 cm), can help the administrators and planners establish more effective utility projects at the grass-root level.

Inaugurating the congress, Governor of West Bengal, Mr.JagdeepDhankar lauded the various activities taken by NATMO to utilise the advances made in the areas of cartography for the benefit of the country. INCA is the only professional body of cartographers and geospatial technologists. It was founded on 7th August, 1979 at Hyderabad. It has become one of the biggest organizations of its kind in the world.

Presiding over the inaugural programme, Dr.Tapati Banerjee, Director, NATMO and President, INCA, noted that cartography or science of map making is as old as human civilization and it has been playing an important role in the activities of mankind from the very beginning of civilization. “Cartography, like architecture, is the art, science, and technology of map production and reproduction. It is one of the media of communication like graphicacy. It is a representation of any segment of spatial reality with a view to communicate and message most effectively”, she said.

The Surveyor General of India and the Director General of Geological Survey of India, Mr.NabinTomar underlined that from ancient times cartographers are making maps which helped travellers and in the excavation of minerals. Now, their role has become wider. They are also helping to chalk out development plans.

The Congress is being held both in physical and virtual mode, keeping in view the pandemic situations. The programme includes special lectures and plenary sessions, apart from technical sessions on a wide range of sub-themes from `Reprogramming of Traditional Cartographic Practices into Digital and Alternative Cartography’, and `ICT and interactive map services in smart planning for food and livelihood security’ to `Water Resource Management’.

With inputs from India Science Wire.