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Sarvam AI co-founder Pratyush Kumar joined a host of visionaries at the AI Summit 2026, hosted by NDTV at ITC Maurya today. The Summit coincides with the government's five-day India AI Impact Summit inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday at Bharat Mandapam.

Who Is Pratyush Kumar?

Pratyush Kumar completed his BTech in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from IIT Bombay in 2009. He went on to earn a PhD in Computer Engineering from ETH Zurich in 2014.

Kumar then joined IBM Research in 2015 as a research scientist. He worked on advanced AI and computing projects. He subsequently spent two years as a researcher at Microsoft Research.

From 2018 to 2021, he served as faculty at IIT Madras. He remains adjunct faculty at IIT Madras.

He co-founded Sarvam AI alongside Vivek Raghavan. The company has claimed that its AI models outperform global leaders such as Google Gemini and OpenAI's ChatGPT. 

Kumar also spearheaded AI4Bharat, an initiative dedicated to creating AI tools for Indian languages.

Kumar also launched PadhAI, an online learning platform designed to make high-quality education more affordable and scalable.

In 2019, he co-founded One Fourth Labs, a venture specialising in AI education and consulting. 

Pratyush Kumar, CEO and co-founder of Sarvam AI - who joined the India CAN initiative (that focuses on fostering sustainable, tech-driven solutions for environmental, industrial, and social challenges) - called it an "interesting evolution".

"There were times when people said India shouldn't, right? Shouldn't build models, right? There are times when people said India must build models, and some people say India must, and so on, which are just opinions. I think what we are trying to show is that India can, and that the proof of concept of deep tech in India is done. We can build it. It's now about figuring out how to have proof of scale and then taking it forward, right? So I'm, I'm generally optimistic India is a country that will, that has demonstrated success over millennia," he said.

Pratyush Kumar, CEO and co-founder of Sarvam AI, said he is most excited about education and AI.

Speaking at NDTV's India.AI summit, Kumar said, "Imagine giving a free tutor to every student in this country, which they can access on a feature phone, on a smartphone. They can say, I just studied this today in class. I didn't understand it. Help me out, and it is personalised. It is at the level of the student in their language and can help them, right? This is not at all a fantasy with very, very low cost. We can provide access to education to all, right? And of course it applies to healthcare and agriculture. But education, especially in this fast-moving world, is going to be a big challenge, and that's one thing that we can solve."

#NDTVIndAISummit | Pratyush Kumar (@pratykumar), CEO & Co-founder, Sarvam AI, recalls the moment when he met PM Narendra Modi to show Made-in-India AI glasses@SPF_India | @ShwetaRKohli | @shivaroor
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Pratyush Kumar, CEO and co-founder of Sarvam AI, speaking at NDTV's India.AI summit, said India is a "tremendously hard benchmark for what AI needs to get right to work for all of India".

"One of the most exciting things that Sarvam is doing is taking Indian languages, optimizing them using homegrown AI deck, and scaling them up for the entire populations, and this is something that very few people can do. The global majors, want a piece of it, but it's only a company like Sarvam that can actually get into it from its very core," he said.

Pratyush Kumar, CEO and co-founder of Sarvam AI, spoke at NDTV at the India.AI summit about his AI-powered glasses, which were worn by PM Modi.

"We had a chance to show him each of our products. What is very interesting to me was the security folks had put a little bit of a mark on the ground where he should stand and look at the products. He came there, of course, and then we showed him the models we are training," Kumar said.

He added, "We talked about the talent we have, the amount of quality we have in building AI from India, and that we can do it in India. The other thing that I found interesting was that I showed him a feature that AI doesn't require expensive gadgets on a feature phone; somebody can actually call up and ask any question to the models that we have built. He listened to it. He said, Does it speak Gujarati? We showed him an example of Gujarati. So it was really, was really energizing."

Watch #LIVE | #NDTVIndAISummit - a dialogue that will explore how deeply artificial intelligence is now woven into India's economic priorities, policy frameworks, and strategic thinking.
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Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales, speaking with NDTV's Senior Executive Editor Aditya Raj Kaul from the AI Summit at Bharat Mandapam, struck an optimistic yet cautious note on India's role in shaping the future of AI, stressing the importance of human oversight, open knowledge, and public-private collaboration. Wales described the scale and energy of the event as emblematic of India’s growing influence in global technology debates. With more than 200,000 registrations and delegations from over 20 countries, the summit, he said, exceeded expectations. “It’s all the energy of India. I thought it would be big. It’s bigger than that,” Wales remarked. 

According to Wales, one of the most promising aspects of artificial intelligence is its growing ability to work across languages, an area that still needs improvement but holds enormous potential for countries like India. Combined with a strong software workforce and a deeply entrepreneurial culture, AI could significantly boost productivity and innovation. “It’s a very exciting time,” he said.

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Anchored in India's distinctive strengths - from its population-scale digital public infrastructure to its dynamic startup and research ecosystem - NDTV's Ind.ai will position India not merely as a participant in the AI revolution, but as a shaper of its global norms and direction. The Summit aims to convene policymakers, technologists, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders to chart a framework for AI that is trusted, inclusive, and transformative - for India and for the world.

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The stage is set for the NDTV India AI Summit, bringing together policymakers, industry leaders, innovators, and thought leaders to shape an AI future grounded in human values and ethical responsibility.

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Artificial Intelligence is no longer a futuristic concept for India's defence sector but a present-day operational necessity, Dr Chandrika Kaushik, the Director General (Production Coordination & Services Interaction) at the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), said in an exclusive interview with NDTV on the sidelines of the AI Summit in New Delhi.

Speaking to NDTV's Senior Executive Editor Aditya Raj Kaul, Dr Kaushik underlined that AI will play a decisive role in national security as the volume and complexity of data available to armed forces continue to grow exponentially.

"The amount of data that is available across the defence spectrum today is humanly impossible to crunch and make meaningful sense of in real time. This is where AI plays a leading role," she said.

NDTV is hosting the India AI Impact Summit 2026 on its third day at ITC Maurya in New Delhi, beginning with a dance performance in front of an LED screen that tells the story of the Summit. As artificial intelligence transitions from experimentation to real-world deployment at scale, the Summit will explore the delicate balance between innovation and safeguards, growth and ethics, disruption and inclusion. The Summit aims to convene policymakers, technologists, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders to chart a framework for AI that is trusted, inclusive, and transformative - for India and for the world.

NDTV will speak to many leaders, including Rishi Sunak, who will discuss the age of intelligence - power, policy, and innovation.