Dharmendra Pradhan launches Bodhan AI to power India’s education AI
Dharmendra Pradhan launches Bodhan AI to power India’s education AI
Union education minister unveils Bodhan AI at IIT Madras to create Bharat EduAI Stack, a public AI infrastructure for schools, higher ed, skilling, and research.
New Delhi is the stage for a bold leap in education technology as the two-day Bharat Bodhan AI Conclave 2026 unfolds at Bharat Mandapam. The event saw the launch of Bodhan AI, a Centre of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence for education, housed at IIT Madras, with the goal of integrating AI across schools, higher education, skilling, and research nationwide. The initiative centers on building the Bharat EduAI Stack, an open digital public infrastructure designed to power AI tools across the education spectrum while ensuring data sovereignty through Indian AI models.
IIT Madras director V. Kamakoti explained that Bodhan AI will develop a foundational multilingual AI model hosted in India, plus a common technology layer that states, institutions, and edtech startups can use to create learning tools. The platform is envisioned as both an infrastructure provider and an application aggregator, enabling existing edtech solutions and new startups to plug into a shared ecosystem rather than duplicating systems. The CoE will be run through a Section-8 company, the IIT Madras Bodhan AI Foundation, a non-profit entity under India's Companies Act 2013.
Funding for the initiative will come from government support for up to five years, with long-term sustainability expected from state partnerships, CSR contributions, and equity participation in incubated startups building solutions on the platform. In the Union Budget 2025-26, ₹500 crore was allocated to establish the CoE in AI for education, with ₹100 crore earmarked for the 2026-27 financial year. The Bharat EduAI Stack aims to power AI-enabled tools across kindergarten to research, creating a unified, India-centric AI ecosystem designed to respect data sovereignty and encourage innovation across the education sector.
If successful, Bodhan AI could redefine how AI tutors, teacher aids, and learning applications operate within classrooms and campuses, while offering a scalable public infrastructure that startups can build upon and educators can trust.
