From IndiaAI to foundation models: How 2025 reshaped India’s AI push

2025 has been a turning point for AI and tech policy in India. In this year end podcast, businessline's Sindhu Hariharan speaks with Suraj Amonkar, Chief AI Research & Platforms Officer, Fractal Analytics, about how the IndiaAI Mission has accelerated the ecosystem — from GPU access and sovereign model development to AI governance and the rollout of the DPDP Act. Suraj reflects on why this year marks an inflection point for AI in India, and how Fractal has built on years of deep research to advance foundation models, reasoning systems, diffusion models and agentic AI. He also discusses the company’s growing presence at top global AI conferences, its open-source work — including the Fathom model series and Kaleido diffusion models. The conversation looks ahead to 2026, examining how the IndiaAI Mission could enable larger, more ambitious models and what that means for India’s role in global AI research and deployment.