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30 Indian Minds Leading the AI Revolution

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India’s AI revolution is driven by a bold new generation of thinkers, builders, and changemakers. They’re solving complex problems, scaling impactful ventures, and reimagining technology’s role in society. From pioneering global research to creating products that touch millions, these innovators defy convention and stay rooted in purpose. Together, they shape the future of AI in India—and beyond. Forbes India and Accel proudly present “30 Indian Minds Leading the AI Revolution”—a tribute to vision, grit, and innovation.

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30 Indian Minds Leading the AI Revolution: The Visionaries Building the Future

Abhishek Singh

Singh is spearheading India’s $1.2 billion AI mission, driving initiatives across compute infrastructure, foundational models, and public-sector applications. As Additional Secretary at MeitY and CEO of IndiaAI, he’s enabling the development of voice-based LLMs, AI Kosha for datasets, and funding for startups like Sarvam AI. With 50,000 GPUs planned and 30 AI applications in deployment, Singh’s strategy focuses on inclusive innovation, regulation, and building Indian AI products that can compete globally.

Additional Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology; CEO, IndiaAI Mission

Amitabh Nag

Nag is leading Bhashini, India’s AI-powered language translation platform, to bridge the country’s vast linguistic divide. Supporting over 22 Indian languages, Bhashini handles over 300 million translations monthly and powers services in sectors like agriculture, healthcare, and education. Built in collaboration with 70+ research institutes, the platform enables voice, text, and video translation—even offline. With a focus on accessibility, community co-ownership, and digital inclusion, Nag is shaping India’s multilingual AI future.

CEO, Bhashini

Aravind Srinivas

Srinivas is redefining online search with Perplexity AI—an “answer engine” that merges traditional search with large language models to deliver direct, conversational results. A former researcher at DeepMind, Google, and OpenAI, he co-founded Perplexity in 2022. Backed by Jeff Bezos and Nvidia, the startup is valued at $9 billion and growing fast. With plans to expand access in India, Srinivas is leading the charge in AI-powered search innovation.

Co-founder and CEO, Perplexity AI

Arvind Jain

Jain is transforming enterprise productivity with Glean, a conversational AI platform that delivers personalised answers by scanning internal company data. Built by ex-Google engineers, Glean integrates with structured and unstructured data across departments—HR, sales, engineering, and more—while supporting the latest LLMs with full data privacy. With $100M+ in ARR and a $4.6B valuation, Jain’s vision is to simplify enterprise AI adoption through interoperability, flexibility, and scale.

CEO, Glean

Ashish Vaswani

Best known for co-authoring the landmark paper “Attention Is All You Need”, Vaswani helped introduce the Transformer architecture that underpins today’s generative AI revolution. After impactful years at Google Brain, he co-founded Adept and later Essential AI—an open science company building frontier models to solve complex global challenges. With a vision for accessible, transparent AI, Vaswani is shaping the future of AI research by championing openness, collaboration, and real-world impact.

Co-founder, Essential AI

B Ravindran

A pioneer in reinforcement learning and responsible AI, Ravindran is shaping India’s AI future through both scientific innovation and policy leadership. As founder of CeRAI at IIT-Madras, he’s advancing ethical AI frameworks and tools, while also contributing to national AI regulation and financial sector governance. His work bridges academia, industry, and government, with a focus on inclusion, accessibility, and real-world impact—especially for the Global South. Ravindran champions AI that is not only powerful, but also safe, transparent, and socially aligned.

Head, Wadhwani School of Data Science and AI, IIT-Madras

Ganesh Ramakrishnan

Leading BharatGen, India’s open-source multilingual AI initiative, Ramakrishnan is advancing inclusive, data-efficient models tailored to the country’s linguistic diversity. His team developed Param 1, a bilingual LLM with 25% Indic data, and tools like Bharat Data Sagar and AIKosha to support public data lakes and digital sovereignty. By enabling AI applications in sectors like education, healthcare, and governance, he’s empowering startups and researchers to build India-specific solutions—shaping a self-reliant, accessible AI ecosystem.

Principal Investigator, BharatGen

Geetha Manjunath

Losing a young cousin to breast cancer was a key factor in Geetha Manjunath turning entrepreneur. Geetha, an accomplished computer scientist, founded Niramai Health Analytix in 2016 to innovate early breast cancer detection. Her AI-powered product, Thermalytix, uses thermal imaging to detect cancer more accurately and comfortably than traditional mammography, especially for younger women. Niramai has screened over 280,000 women. With regulatory clearances in the US and Europe, Niramai aims to expand globally and apply its technology to other diseases.

Founder and CEO, Niramai

Harrick Vin

Harrick Vin, CTO at Tata Consultancy Services, sees a shift from task-level automation to activity-level agents and value-chain networks that enhance outcomes and expertise. He envisions AI boosting individual and organizational quality, narrowing the gap between average and elite performers. Vin has helped TCS deliver several AI projects globally, spanning IT, healthcare, and sustainability. Organisations must start preparing for a hybrid workforce, and continuous change, where humans and machines collaborate, he says.

CTO, Tata Consultancy Services

Kalika Bali

Kalika Bali has pioneered inclusive, culturally contextual AI at Microsoft Research India, focusing on India’s linguistic diversity. She led foundational work in code-mixed NLP, low-resource languages like Gondi, and AI evaluation through initiatives like Pariksha and Samiksha. Her contributions to Project VeLLM and Shiksha copilot empower educators and underserved communities. With a background in linguistics and speech technology, Bali champions ethical, community-driven AI—ensuring language is treated not just as data, but as identity, culture, and a gateway to opportunity.

Senior Principal Researcher, Microsoft Research India

Laina Emmanuel and Rimjhim Agrawal

Laina Emmanuel and Rimjhim Agrawal, founders of BrainSight AI, received software-as-a-medical-device certification from India’s CDSCO for their AI-powered brain mapping product, VoxelBox, in March. This enables commercial expansion across India, with plans to reach 100 hospitals and pursue US FDA approval. Their platform uses advanced fMRI and machine learning to aid diagnosis and surgery, while their patient app, Snowdrop, supports holistic care. BrainSightAI recently raised $5 million from leading investors.

Co-Founders, BrainSight AI

Manish Gupta

Gupta founded Google Research India to build inclusive AI that addresses real-world challenges. His team enabled Google Translate to add 110 new languages, developed efficient models like Gemini Nano and Flash, and applied AI to public health and agriculture. He’s also led efforts to uncover and mitigate cultural biases in AI, collaborating with Indian institutions to build responsible systems. Gupta’s work is focused on scalable, impactful innovation that empowers billions, especially in underserved communities.

Senior Director, Google DeepMind

Manu Chopra & Safiya Husain

Redefining AI’s value chain, Chopra and Husain are building Karya—a social impact startup that pays rural Indians up to 20x the minimum wage to create high-quality datasets for global AI firms. By turning data collection into dignified digital work, Karya empowers over 100,000 workers across India while advancing linguistic inclusion in AI. With clients like Google and Microsoft, their model proves that cutting-edge innovation can uplift marginalized communities through ethical, human-centered AI.

Co-founders; CEO, Chief Impact Officer, Karya 

Mausam

With over two decades of AI research, Mausam has made foundational contributions across NLP, probabilistic planning, and web-scale information extraction. As a professor at IIT-Delhi and former head of its Yardi School of AI, he’s advancing AI education and interdisciplinary integration. His collaborations with Indian startups and global institutions reflect his commitment to impactful, applied research. Ranked among the world’s top AI scholars, Mausam continues to shape India’s AI landscape through academic leadership and mentorship.

Professor, Computer Science, IIT-Delhi; Affiliate Professor, University of Washington

Mitesh M. Khapra

Mitesh Khapra co-founded AI4Bharat in 2020 to bring Indian language AI technologies on par with English. Starting with building small datasets, the lab became key to India’s Bhashini Mission, now providing 80 percent of its data. Supported by a major grant and collaborations, AI4Bharat built India’s largest open-source language resources, enabling high-quality translation and speech models. Khapra now aims to close the technology gap with English and build a sovereign Indian language LLM and a Bharat Cultural Repository.

Co-Founder, AI4Bharat, Assoc. Prof. IIT Madras

Mohammed Rafee Tarafdar

Rafee Tarafdar, Executive VP and CTO at Infosys, is a leading force behind the company’s transformation into an AI-first enterprise. He has helped Infosys shift from consuming to developing industry-specific AI models, now integrating them into products for banking, cybersecurity, and so on. Infosys has deployed more than 100 AI agents as part of client solutions. Tarafdar believes AI will be embedded in all aspects of work. He emphasizes responsible AI, culture change, and first-principles thinking.

Executive VP and CTO, Infosys

Niki Parmar

Co-author of the landmark paper “Attention Is All You Need”, Parmar helped introduce the Transformer architecture—the foundation of modern AI systems like ChatGPT. After impactful years at Google, she now drives innovation at Anthropic and co-founded Adept AI Labs and Essential AI, building tools that automate workflows and enhance productivity. With deep expertise in deep learning and NLP, she continues to shape the future of AI globally while exploring ways to contribute to India’s AI ecosystem.

Co-founder, Essential AI & Adept AI Labs; Technical Staff, Anthropic

Pranav Mistry

Mistry is leading the shift from foundational AI models to domain-specific, second-layer systems through TWO AI. With its multilingual LLM SUTRA and tools like ChatSutra, the company serves over 500 million users via enterprise clients across telecom, banking, and retail. TWO AI builds compact, high-performance models tailored for local languages and workflows, especially in Asia and the Middle East. Mistry’s vision is to deliver real-world AI solutions at scale—secure, efficient, and deeply contextual.

CEO, TWO AI

Prashant Warier

Transforming global diagnostics, Warier is using AI to bridge critical healthcare gaps through Qure.ai. His team developed tools like qXR for rapid TB screening and AI models that detect early-stage lung cancer from routine X-rays—now deployed in over 4,000 hospitals across 100 countries. With 18 FDA clearances and 1.5 billion annotated images, Qure’s solutions are clinically validated and globally trusted. Warier’s vision is proactive, accessible healthcare—empowered by multimodal AI and tailored for underserved regions.

Founder and CEO, Qure.ai

Pratyush Kumar and Vivek Raghavan

Sarvam AI, founded by Pratyush Kumar and Vivek Raghavan, has been chosen by the Indian government to build the nation’s first sovereign large language model (LLM). Their mission is to create population-scale, multi-modal AI models supporting Indian languages and local contexts. Sarvam has the backing of major venture capital firms and soon, it will have access to 4,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs via the IndiaAI mission. Sarvam’s releases include Sarvam-1, Sarvam-2B, Sarvam-M, and Bulbul.

Co-Founders, Sarvam AI

Preethi Jyothi

Preethi is advancing speech and language technologies to make AI more inclusive for low-resource Indian languages. As an associate professor at IIT-Bombay, her work in ASR and machine learning addresses challenges like accent diversity and code-switching. Her research aims to ensure equitable access to voice-driven technologies, especially for users who cannot read or write. With a focus on ethical AI and systemic support for underrepresented languages, Preethi is shaping a future where voice interfaces work seamlessly across India.

Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT-Bombay

Ramya Joseph

Turning personal adversity into innovation, Joseph founded Pefin—touted as the world’s first AI financial advisor—to make intelligent, affordable financial planning accessible to all. With a background in computer science and financial engineering, she built a platform that uses neural networks to deliver real-time, personalised advice. Now also leading tech at The Bridge Project, she’s applying AI to social impact. Joseph’s work exemplifies how AI can empower individuals financially while driving systemic change.

Co-founder, Pefin

Sanket Shah & Anshul Khandelwal

InVideo, co-founded by Sanket Shah & Anshul Khandelwal, began as a browser-based video editing platform and later pivoted to AI-driven generative media. This shift enabled users to create videos from prompts using a vast stock library. With over 6 million users in 190 countries, the platform now serves content creators and small businesses. The company, which has raised $55 million, saw rapid growth after its AI pivot, reaching $70 million in revenue within 19 months of launching its new product.

CEO, InVideo; CPTO, InVideo

Sharad Sanghi & Anindya Das

Bridging the gap between AI ambition and execution, Sanghi and Das are building Neysa—an AI-native cloud platform that simplifies and accelerates enterprise AI adoption. With offerings like Velocis, Overwatch, and Aegis, Neysa addresses infrastructure gaps, GPU access, and cost barriers. Backed by $53 million in funding, the startup is already serving 20+ clients across sectors. Their mission: to make AI scalable, secure, and accessible—positioning Neysa as the go-to AI acceleration cloud for India and beyond.

Co-founders, CEO & CTO, Neysa

Soham Ganatra and Karan Vaidya

Soham Ganatra and Karan Vaidya founded Sampark Inc., to bring Composio, their AI-led developer-focused integration platform to the fore. Composio enables AI agents to connect with hundreds of tools using just a line of code. This ‘middleware’ dramatically reduces integration time and boosts agent reliability. Some 30,000 developers, including teams from Meta and Salesforce, use Composio. Growing rapidly, the company aims to build a new adaptive layer for AI agents. It’s an example of an emerging tech called model context protocol.

Co-Founders, Composio

Srikanth Velamakanni

Srikanth Velamakanni co-founded Fractal Analytics in 2000, driven by a passion for mathematics and studying human behaviour. The company shifted early from consumer tools to using analytics and AI to predict behaviour, pioneering neural network applications in Indian banking. Fractal’s achievements include solutions for ICICI and HDFC, and advanced customer analytics for global clients like Google and Procter & Gamble. Today, Fractal delivers AI-driven products in healthcare and enterprise automation. Velamakanni advocates bold AI investments for India’s future competitiveness.

Co-Founder, Group CEO and Executive Vice Chair, Fractal

Srinivas Narayanan

Narayanan leads engineering at OpenAI, where his teams built ChatGPT, developer APIs, and viral tools like ImageGen. With roots in AI from IIT-Madras and a decade at Meta, he now drives innovation in multi-modal models, personalisation, and cost reduction. He’s advancing agentic applications like Codex, while prioritising safety and accessibility. Narayanan’s work is shaping how AI transforms education, healthcare, and enterprise—making powerful tools more responsive, affordable, and globally impactful.

Vice president, Engineering OpenAI

Sunita Sarawagi

A pioneer in machine learning, Sarawagi has transformed how computers process unstructured data through innovations like semi-Markov conditional random fields. As a professor at IIT-Bombay and founder of its Centre for Machine Intelligence and Data Science, she’s shaped both research and real-world applications—impacting sectors from logistics to finance. Her work bridges theory and practice, with a focus on responsible AI. Sarawagi continues to influence global AI discourse while mentoring the next generation of researchers.

Professor, Computer Science and Engineering, IIT-Bombay

Surojit Chatterjee

Chatterjee began his AI journey at IIT-Kharagpur, building early neural networks for speech and autonomous navigation. He later scaled Google’s mobile ads and Shopping businesses, and led product at Flipkart and Coinbase. In 2023, he founded EMA to create AI agents that automate enterprise operations. With a focus on responsible AI, security, and real-world impact, Chatterjee is redefining productivity across industries—freeing teams from repetitive tasks and enabling more creative, strategic work.

Founder & CEO, Ema Unlimited

Vipul Ved Prakash

Democratising access to AI infrastructure, Prakash is building Together AI into a global platform for open-source model development and deployment. By addressing the GPU access gap, his company empowers nearly 500,000 developers and enterprises to train and run large models at scale. With innovations like the RedPajama-V2 dataset and a strong open-source ethos, Together AI is reshaping the AI ecosystem. Prakash’s mission is clear: to ensure the future of AI remains open, inclusive, and accessible to all.