IBM and BharatGen have announced a strategic partnership to advance AI adoption in India by developing sovereign multimodal and Indic Large Language Models. The collaboration will focus on education, agriculture, healthcare, and governance, while prioritising underserved Indian languages and responsible AI practices.
Published Date – 18 September 2025, 05:21 PM
Hyderabad: IBM (NYSE: IBM) and BharatGen on Thursday announced a strategic collaboration to accelerate Artificial Intelligence (AI) adoption in India through BharatGen’s sovereign multimodal and Large Language Models (LLMs), tailored to the country’s unique linguistic and cultural diversity.
The partnership brings together IBM’s expertise in AI data, governance, and model training technology with BharatGen’s mandate to build inclusive, India-centric sovereign models rooted in indigenous context and values.
The initiative will focus on developing and scaling multimodal and language-specific AI models, with applications across education, agriculture, banking, healthcare, citizen services, and other sectors.
As part of the collaboration, the two organisations will:
Develop solution templates for Indic use cases by combining BharatGen’s models and data with IBM’s AI technologies, including the IBM Granite models.
Create demonstrations and domain-specific templates on IBM Watsonx and Red Hat OpenShift AI.
Build a scalable data pipeline using IBM’s open-source tools, enhanced with Indic-specific capabilities, to streamline data preparation workflows.
Implement a governance framework based on IBM’s enterprise-scale model development methodology to strengthen responsible AI practices.
Establish benchmarks tailored for Indic domains and languages.
Conduct joint research into emerging model architectures and high-performance generative AI technologies.
“At BharatGen, we have been building sovereign AI models and ecosystems that reflect 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 of BharatGen. “With IBM’s enterprise-grade platforms and our commitment to public-good AI, we aim to drive transformative solutions across agriculture, finance, education, and governance.”
“IBM is committed to creating 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 strengthen sovereign AI capabilities that reflect India’s diversity and deliver meaningful impact across sectors.”
BharatGen’s LLM and foundation model roadmap seeks to address both national and commercial needs in 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.