Aadhaar head to take additional charge as AI Mission CEO

Aadhaar body head Saurabh Vijay will soon take additional charge as the CEO of the India AI Mission, officials told ET on Monday. Vijay, who had joined as the CEO of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) in May, is set to soon also lead the Rs.10,371 India AI Mission, two officials from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) said. The formal announcement may be made soon, they added.

The India AI Mission had been without a leading executive since April, when erstwhile CEO Abhishek Singh had been appointed as the director general of the National Testing Agency under the Department of Higher Education.

Approved by the Cabinet in March 2024 over five years, the India AI Mission is a strategic, government-funded initiative aimed at establishing an indigenous Artificial Intelligence (AI) ecosystem in India.


It has so far established computer infrastructure in the country by onboarding over 38,000 graphics processing unit (GPUs), crucial for running AI operations. It is also extending Rs. 2,135 crores to 12 startups, industry players and academic institutions for developing Large and Small Language Models based on Indian datasets.

It also led the organising of the India AI Impact Summit in February, which convened over 20 Heads of State, 60 Ministers, and hundreds of global AI and tech leaders to discuss inclusive, responsible AI. The Mission has also established 27 India Data and AI labs, while 543 more have been identified.