Centre releases less than a fourth of AI CoE funds approved till FY28

The Centre has released ₹233 crore for three AI Centres of Excellence, with IITs and IISc leading sector-specific AI research in agriculture, healthcare and cities

The Centre has released ₹233 crore, or 23.5 per cent, of the ₹990 crore total financial outlay approved over a five-year period from FY2023-24 (FY24) to FY2027-28 (FY28) to establish three Centres of Excellence (CoE) in artificial intelligence (AI), according to a written reply in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday.

 

The three AI CoEs, announced in the Union Budget 2023-24 as part of the government’s “Make AI in India and Make AI work for India” vision, focus on agriculture, healthcare, and sustainable cities. The centres are led by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Ropar, IIT Kanpur, and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru.

 

 

Government data shows that ₹27 crore was released during FY2023-24 and FY2024-25 to consortiums of institutions in the pilot phase for competitive selection. Since then, ₹74.39 crore has been released to IIT Kanpur, ₹69.07 crore to IISc Bengaluru, and ₹62.64 crore to IIT Ropar during FY2025-26 and FY2026-27.

 

A separate AI Centre of Excellence for Education with an outlay of ₹500 crore, which has been established at IIT Madras, was announced in the Union Budget 2025-26. So far, ₹43 crore has been released for the centre.

 

The ministry of education said the four AI CoEs are working with academic institutions, industry, and government organisations to develop AI models for sector-specific applications. Among the outputs cited were machine learning models for automatic speech recognition, optical character recognition, machine translation, and text-to-speech systems supporting Indian languages under the Education CoE; crop, pest, and disease identification models under the Agriculture CoE; and air pollution attribution and urban flood prediction models under the Sustainable Cities CoE.

 

On fund utilisation, the ministry said progress is being monitored through an apex committee comprising industry leaders and senior administrators, an independent project monitoring and review committee for tracking project-level deliverables, and periodic reviews by the central project management unit. These reviews assessed technological development against approved milestones and financial utilisation.

 

The reply, however, did not provide year-wise fund utilisation by individual centres or indicate a timeline for release of the remaining allocation.

 

The AI CoEs are part of the Centre’s broader push to build India’s AI ecosystem across research, education, and innovation. In 2024, the government approved the ₹10,370 crore IndiaAI Mission to expand access to computing infrastructure, support AI startups, develop indigenous foundational models, and create AI datasets. Separately, the ministry of education has been integrating AI into school and higher education. The Central Board of Secondary Education introduced AI as a skill subject for Classes VIII to X and as an elective in senior secondary classes, while encouraging schools to establish AI labs and promote hands-on learning in emerging technologies.