A workshop on AIKosh, the national datasets and models platform under the IndiaAI Mission, was organised today at the India Habitat Centre, New Delhi. The workshop brought together representatives from Government, industry, academia and the startup ecosystem to deliberate on measures to unlock the potential of India's data for Artificial Intelligence (AI).

The day began with a welcome address by Shri Mohammed Y. Safirulla K, Director, IndiaAI Mission, who introduced AIKosh to the delegates, followed by opening remarks from Shri Sudeep Shrivastava, COO, IndiaAI Mission, who set out the agenda for the day.

Delivering remarks on “Data as National Wealth: India’s Imperative for Sovereign AI,” Shri Saurabh Vijay, CEO, IndiaAI Mission, underlined the strategic importance of data for India's sovereign AI ambitions and the need to unlock the value of the country's data assets for innovation and national development.

"AIKosh is the platform India has provided for the ecosystem. If we are to match the best in the world, our collective ownership of this initiative is what will take it to that global standard."

– Shri Saurabh Vijay, CEO, IndiaAI Mission

The workshop was formally inaugurated by Dr. Saurabh Garg, Secretary, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), who highlighted the importance of strengthening India's data ecosystem and enabling responsible use of data to support emerging AI capabilities.

“The defining challenge we are solving alongside the IndiaAI Mission is ensuring that data is discoverable, understandable, interoperable, and securely accessible across all ministries."

– Dr. Saurabh Garg, Secretary, MoSPI

This was followed by a presentation on “Overview of AIKosh: Present and Future Perspective,” delivered jointly by Ms. Shikha Dahiya, Joint Director, IndiaAI Mission, and Shri Swadeep Singh, General Manager, Data Science, IndiaAI Mission.

Deliberations on Data Governance and Sharing

The first session, “Thought Leadership: Unlocking AI Data at Scale,” brought together data and AI experts from industry and academia, including representatives of Google DeepMind, UIDAI, the World Bank, IIT Jodhpur, EkStep and CoRover.ai, for a panel discussion on lawful data sharing, privacy-preserving use, and the case for and against sharing specific categories of data. The session was moderated by Shri Suhel Bidani, Deputy Director, Digital and AI, Gates Foundation, and closed with an open discussion with the audience.

The session was followed by three short keynote addresses: “Unlocking Data for AI in Governance” by Shri Nand Kumaram, CEO, National e-Governance Division (NeGD); “Scaling Data Unlock for Digital Public Goods” by Ms. Tanusree Deb Barma, Deputy Director General, UIDAI; and “Needs of the Open Data Ecosystem” by Shri Abhishek Upperwal, Founder and CEO, SoketAI.

Understanding the Needs of AI Builders

The second session, “What the Developer Ecosystem Needs,” brought together model builders, sectoral innovators and data collectors to deliberate on the datasets, platforms and data architecture required to build AI applications and foundational models suited to India's context. The session was moderated by Dr. Santosh Misra, Partner, PwC, and closed with an open discussion with the audience.

Sectoral Deep Dives: From Data to Use Cases

In the afternoon, delegates broke into three parallel roundtables on Health and Lifesciences; Agriculture and Livelihoods; and Education, Science and Technology, each opening with a short presentation on the key insights and questions arising from the morning sessions.

Across the three roundtables, participants identified priority opportunities, the datasets required to realise them, key challenges faced by data custodians, and possible mechanisms for enabling responsible data sharing.

MoUs to Strengthen India’s AI and Digital Public Infrastructure Ecosystem

 

As part of the workshop, IndiaAI, the National e-Governance Division (NeGD) and the Centre for Digital Public Infrastructure (CDPI) through the International Institute of Information Technology, Bengaluru (IIIT-B) signed a Memorandum of Understanding to strengthen cooperation in building India’s AI and Digital Public Infrastructure ecosystem. The partnership will provide technical, architectural, policy and knowledge support to IndiaAI and NeGD, including for the development of population-scale AI-enabled governance solutions and a seamless and secure data exchange for AI-ready datasets, models and other resources on AIKosh.

The MoU will also facilitate knowledge exchange, ecosystem engagement and the development of frameworks, templates, dashboards, prototypes and testing environments to support India’s AI and DPI ecosystem.

A second Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between the IndiaAI Mission and the EkStep Foundation to advance collaboration toward India’s AI future. The agreement was signed by Shri Sudeep Shrivastava, COO, IndiaAI Mission, and Shri Jagdish Babu, COO, EkStep Foundation.

The partnership aims to foster collective intelligence, cost-efficient and scalable AI operating systems, open-gate models, platforms and solutions bringing together capabilities across the ecosystem to enable accessible and impactful AI innovation at scale.

Towards an Action-Oriented Data Ecosystem

The workshop concluded with a debrief session in which the moderators of each breakout group presented a readout of the discussions and proposed actions. Key areas identified for follow-up included prioritising high-value datasets, strengthening data harmonisation, developing privacy-preserving exchange capabilities, addressing the concerns of data custodians, and identifying data streams for onboarding onto AIKosh.

Delivering the plenary remarks, Shri S. Krishnan, Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), highlighted the importance of building an enabling ecosystem for the responsible and impactful use of data to advance India's AI ambitions.

“The critical aspect of all technology is the impact it has on society, how it enhances quality of life, and what it offers to the people of the country. For India, this is truly an opportunity to leverage a horizontal, cross-cutting technology like AI to ensure the country is firmly on the path to becoming Viksit Bharat by 2047."

 – Shri S. Krishnan, Secretary, MeitY

About AIKosh

AIKosh, under the IndiaAI Mission, is a national platform for datasets, AI models and related resources, designed to enable greater discoverability, access and responsible use of AI-ready resources for India's AI ecosystem. AIKosh currently hosts over 15,000 datasets, 300 AI models and 30 toolkits, enabling researchers, startups, developers and students to build AI solutions using trusted national resources.

About IndiaAI Mission

The IndiaAI Mission, under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), is advancing India's AI ecosystem through initiatives spanning compute capacity, datasets and models, innovation, AI applications, future skills, startup financing, and safe and trusted AI.

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Vinod Kumar / Kanishk Sharma

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