How Two Engineers Built Sarvam AI from an Idea to a Summit Showcase

At the India AI Impact Summit 2026, held at Bharat Mandapam, one young startup captured national attention Sarvam AI. Less than three years old, the Bengaluru-based company showcased its made-in-India large language models (LLMs) and AI-powered hardware, including the sleek Sarvam Kaze spectacles worn by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the summit. While the summit moment went viral, Sarvam AI’s rise was not accidental. It was the result of years of groundwork by two engineers determined to build sovereign AI systems tailored to India’s languages, culture, and real-world needs.

The Vision of Sarvam AI : Sovereign AI for India

Founded in 2023 and headquartered in Bengaluru, Sarvam AI was among 12 organisations selected by the Indian government to develop AI models trained on Indian datasets.

Its mission “AI for all from India” focused on,

• Building generative AI rooted in Indian languages
• Training models on Indian documents, textbooks, newspapers, and scanned records
• Developing speech recognition, OCR, and multimodal AI systems

Unlike many global AI systems trained predominantly on Western data, Sarvam AI concentrated on Indic languages and local contexts, addressing a gap often overlooked by large international labs.

The Founders of Sarvam AI : Deep Technical Roots

Sarvam AI was founded by Pratyush Kumar and Vivek Raghavan, both with strong academic and professional backgrounds.

Pratyush Kumar

• An IIT Bombay graduate in Electrical Engineering,
• Kumar later earned a PhD from ETH Zurich.
• He worked at IBM Research and Microsoft Research before joining IIT Madras as faculty.
• His expertise lay in advanced AI and computing systems.

Vivek Raghavan

• An IIT Delhi alumnus, Raghavan completed his Master’s and PhD at Carnegie Mellon University.
• Instead of pursuing academia, he launched startups in electronic design automation (EDA), with one venture acquired and another serving
• Nvidia as an early customer.

In 2007, he returned to India and shifted toward public digital infrastructure and language technology.

Role in India’s Digital Infrastructure

Raghavan’s experience deeply influenced Sarvam’s direction.

He served at the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) as chief product manager and biometric architect, contributing to the scaling of the Aadhaar platform from its first enrolment to the billionth.

He also,

• Introduced AI systems for fraud detection in Aadhaar
• Advised GSTN on AI-based fraud detection
• Worked with NPCI on digital payment innovations
• Contributed to the Data Empowerment and Protection Architecture (DEPA) framework
• Played a role in AI translation systems for the Supreme Court

His association with AI4Bharat further reinforced the goal of building English-equivalent AI capabilities in Indian languages.

Funding and Rapid Expansion

Sarvam AI moved swiftly after incorporation.

In December 2023, it raised $41 million in a Series A round led by Lightspeed, with participation from Peak XV Partners and Khosla Ventures.

Key milestones followed,

• February 2024: Partnership with Microsoft to build voice-based generative AI tools.
• June 2024: Named among the World Economic Forum’s Technology Pioneers 2024.
• September 2024: Joined the AI Alliance alongside global firms like Meta and IBM.
• March 2025: Partnered with UIDAI to deploy AI-powered voice feedback systems for Aadhaar services.

By early 2026, the company claimed benchmark results outperforming ChatGPT and Gemini in specific areas such as Indic OCR and document layout understanding.

The Summit Moment: Product Showcase

The India AI Impact Summit 2026 became Sarvam AI’s biggest public stage.

Beyond the much-discussed Sarvam Kaze AI glasses, the company unveiled 11 AI platforms in the weeks leading up to the event.

Key Offerings

• Sarvam Akshar – High-accuracy document digitisation system
• Sarvam Studio – Multilingual content creation platform
• Saaras V3 – Speech recognition model
• Sarvam Vision – Visual AI for Indian scripts
• Bulbul V3 – Advanced speech model
• Sarvam Arya – India-focused foundational model

Pratyush Kumar emphasised the need to move “beyond English in AI”, arguing that user experiences vary widely across regions and that AI benchmarks must reflect cultural and contextual realities.

Why Sarvam AI Matters for India

Sarvam AI represents a broader shift in India’s technology ambitions.

1. Digital Sovereignty

India aims to reduce reliance on foreign AI models and build domestic foundational capabilities.

2. Linguistic Inclusion

With 22 scheduled languages and hundreds of dialects, AI systems must handle multilingual and non-Latin scripts effectively.

3. Public Sector Integration

Deployments with UIDAI and other institutions show how AI can enhance governance, transparency, and service delivery.

Key Takeaways

• Founded: 2023
• Headquarters: Bengaluru
• Focus: Sovereign AI and Indic language models
• Series A Funding: $41 million (December 2023)
• Major Deployment: UIDAI voice-based AI system (2025)
• Summit Showcase: India AI Impact Summit 2026