New Delhi, Nov. 17 -- India's generative AI ecosystem has entered a new phase of growth. Startup formation has surged 3.7x over the past year, crossing 890 ventures and attracting $1.5 billion in funding since 2020. Alongside this, the government has taken a decisive step toward building a sovereign large language model (LLM), selecting SarvamAI under the IndiaAI Mission.

This momentum is driven by clear demand: India's multilingual, high-population market requires AI systems that can operate in dozens of languages. The rise of conversational AI-particularly in education, healthcare, industrial operations and entertainment-is pushing companies to build models tuned to Indian linguistic and cultural contexts.

Three forces are converging ...