New Delhi, Dec 16 (NationPress) In a significant move to bolster India's research landscape, Google.org, the charitable arm of Google, has revealed a funding initiative of $8 million dedicated to four AI Centres of Excellence focusing on health, agriculture, education, and sustainable cities.

These centres were set up by the Government to fulfill the vision of "Make AI in India and Make AI work for India".

The centres encompass TANUH at IISc Bangalore, which will concentrate on formulating scalable AI solutions for the effective treatment of non-communicable diseases; Airawat Research Foundation at IIT Kanpur, which will spearhead innovative research on AI aimed at transforming urban governance.

The AI Centre of Excellence for Education at IIT Madras is tasked with crafting solutions to improve learning and teaching outcomes, while ANNAM.AI at IIT Ropar will focus on developing data-driven strategies for enhancing agriculture and farmer welfare.

Furthermore, Google has pledged $2 million as a foundational contribution to create the new Indic Language Technologies Research Hub at IIT Bombay.

This hub, established in honor of Professor Pushpak Bhattacharyya, a trailblazer in Indic language technologies and a Visiting Researcher at Google DeepMind, is set to ensure that global AI innovations cater to India's linguistic diversity.

“India is viewing artificial intelligence as a strategic national asset, rather than a temporary technological trend. The four AI Centres of Excellence are designed as a unified national research initiative, promoting foundational research, responsible AI, and practical solutions that serve public interests, additionally contributing to our broader aspiration of Viksit Bharat 2047,” stated Dharmendra Pradhan, Minister of Education.

“To create a globally competitive AI ecosystem, we require not just public funding, but also robust institutional leadership and enduring partnerships with the industry. This initiative is backed by Google and Google.org through their $8 million contribution to the AI Centres of Excellence and a $2 million foundational contribution to the Indic Language Technologies Research Hub at IIT Bombay,” he further elaborated.

During Google’s “Lab to Impact” dialogue, supported by the India AI Impact Summit 2026, the company also committed $400,000 to facilitate the development of India’s Health Foundation model utilizing Google’s MedGemma—a specialized AI model tailored for healthcare.

Initially, Ajna Lens will collaborate with experts from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) to create models that will address India-specific applications in Dermatology and OPD Triaging.

The resulting models will enhance India’s Digital Public Infrastructure, with their outcomes being made accessible to the broader ecosystem.

Additionally, Google is collaborating with India’s National Health Authority (NHA) to leverage its advanced AI to convert millions of fragmented and unstructured medical records, including doctors' clinical notes and progress reports, into the international, machine-readable FHIR standard.

"From foundational research to ecosystem deployment and scaled impact, our comprehensive approach is positioning the country to spearhead a global AI-driven future, with innovations from India’s labs benefiting billions worldwide," remarked Dr. Manish Gupta, Senior Research Director at Google DeepMind.