Google has announced an $8 million funding package for four government‑backed AI Centers of Excellence in India, along with several new collaborations in healthcare, agriculture, and Indic‑language technologies. The moves, unveiled at Google’s “Lab to Impact” dialogue on the sidelines of the India AI Impact Summit 2026, support the national vision to “Make AI in India and Make AI work for India.”
Google has announced a major expansion of its support for India’s artificial intelligence ecosystem, anchored by an $8 million funding package for four AI Centers of Excellence set up by the Indian government. The commitment, revealed at the company’s “Lab to Impact” dialogue on December 16, accompanies a suite of new partnerships that aim to embed AI into public‑good applications, especially in healthcare, agriculture, and education. The initiative aligns with the government’s vision to “Make AI in India and Make AI work for India.”
Dr. Manish Gupta, Senior Research Director at Google DeepMind, said AI is “humanity’s most profound and powerful force for progress” and noted that India’s proactive adoption of AI could position the country to lead the next phase of an AI‑driven global economy. The $8 million grant comes from Google.org, the company’s philanthropic arm, and will support research at four leading institutions. TANUH at IISc Bangalore will focus on scalable AI solutions for the effective treatment of non‑communicable diseases. The Airawat Research Foundation at IIT Kanpur will work on AI‑driven models to transform urban governance. The AI Centre of Excellence for Education at IIT Madras will develop AI tools to improve teaching and learning outcomes, while ANNAM.AI at IIT Ropar will pursue data‑driven solutions for agriculture and farmer welfare.
Beyond the Centers of Excellence, Google has unveiled a set of collaborations to integrate AI into India’s Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), particularly in healthcare. A $400,000 grant will support the development of India‑specific Health Foundation Models using Google’s MedGemma. The company is also working with the National Health Authority (NHA) to deploy advanced AI in order to convert millions of fragmented, unstructured medical records into the international FHIR standard, enabling interoperable, machine‑readable electronic health data. In parallel, Google is helping the NHA bring over 400,000 registered health facilities onto Google Maps and Search, so the public can easily access reliable, up‑to‑date information about nearby centres.
To address India’s linguistic diversity, Google announced a $2 million founding contribution to establish the Indic Language Technologies Research Hub at IIT Bombay. The company has also uploaded all 22 Gemma models – its open‑source foundational models – to AIKosh, the India AI Mission’s open data and model platform, and is providing $50,000 in funding to Indian startups that use Gemma to build Indic‑language solutions. Additional grants include $2.5 million to Wadhwani AI for piloting an LLM‑based conversational‑AI assistant and a further $2 million to support the development of an Indian‑language‑specific agriculture‑focused model. Together, these measures signal a broad‑based attempt to localize AI for India’s social, linguistic, and economic context.