IBM and BharatGen Collaborate to Accelerate AI Adoption in India Powered by Indic Large Language Models

Mumbai - September 17, 2025 - IBM (NYSE: IBM) and BharatGen today announced a strategic collaboration to advance the adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in India powered by BharatGen's sovereign multimodal and Large Language Models (LLMs) tailored to India's unique linguistic and cultural landscape. This collaboration aims to bring together IBM's AI expertise in data, governance and model training technology, and BharatGen's national mandate and expertise to create inclusive, India-centric sovereign multimodal and Large Language Models (LLMs) rooted in indigenous context and values.

The initiative focuses on developing and scaling multimodal and language specific AI models and expanding their applications across various sectors, including education, agriculture, banking healthcare, citizen services and more. As part of this collaboration, BharatGen and IBM will aim to:

• Develop solution templates for Indic use cases leveraging BharatGen's models and data with IBM's AI technologies including IBM Granite Models.
• Create demonstrations and use case templates (RAG and targeted domains) on IBM Watsonx and Red Hat OpenShift AI.
• Build a scalable data pipeline using IBM's selected open source tools, enhanced with Indic specific capabilities to streamline data preparation workflows. Implement a governance framework from IBM's enterprise scale model development methodology to strengthen responsible model development.
• Create new benchmarks specifically suited for Indic domain and languages.
• Research new and emerging model architecture and technologies leveraging IBM and BharatGen's experience and expertise in high performance and purpose-built generative AI models.

"At BharatGen, we have been building sovereign AI models and the ecosystem that reflects the linguistic richness, cultural nuances, and diverse needs of our people. This collaboration with IBM allows us to bring cutting-edge global research, scalable architectures and inclusive systems for India" said Prof. Ganesh Ramakrishnan, BharatGen. "With IBM's strength in enterprise-grade platforms and our commitment to public-good AI, we are on a path to drive transformative solutions for empowering India's digital journey across domains such as agriculture, finance, education, and governance."

"At IBM, we are committed to support the creation of open, trusted AI that solves real-world problems," said Sandip Patel, Managing Director, IBM India and South Asia. "Through our collaboration with BharatGen, we aim to advance sovereign AI capabilities that reflect India's diversity and deliver meaningful impact across sectors."

BharatGen's LLM and foundation model roadmap is designed to address both national and commercial needs across agriculture, education, healthcare, national security, and finance. A key priority is the inclusion of underserved Indian languages and dialects beyond the top 12-22, ensuring broader digital participation and equity.

About BharatGen

BharatGen is a consortium under the Technology Innovation Hub at IIT Bombay and an Indian Government-Funded multimodal and large language model initiative for Indian languages, supported by the Department of Science and Technology (DST). Its mandate is to build AI for the nation by developing efficient AI models for Indian languages, creating a multilingual data repository, fostering public-private partnerships for scalable AI, and strengthening India's AI talent pool and startup ecosystem. BharatGen is building a family of LLMs and multi-modal FMs to serve diverse needs in India, including representing underserved languages, creating sovereign models for self-reliance, and partnering to build solutions for national importance across various sectors.

About IBM

IBM is a leading provider of global hybrid cloud and AI, and consulting expertise. We help clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their industries. Thousands of government and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM's hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently and securely. IBM's breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and consulting deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM's long-standing commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity and service. Visit www.ibm.com for more information.

Media contact:

IBM India

Prasanna Ramanathan
[email protected]

Antonetta Kumar
[email protected]

BharatGen

Media Team
[email protected]

Sonia Kaushal
[email protected]