Digital
IndiaAI and ICMR join hands to scale responsible AI in healthcare
Partnership aims to boost AI research, datasets and public health innovation
NEW DELHI: IndiaAI and Indian Council of Medical Research have signed a memorandum of understanding to accelerate the adoption of responsible artificial intelligence in India’s healthcare sector.
The collaboration brings together the technology and AI infrastructure capabilities of IndiaAI with the biomedical research and public health expertise of Indian Council of Medical Research to build a more connected and interoperable AI ecosystem for healthcare in India.
The partnership will operate under the umbrella of Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and will be implemented through Digital India Corporation.
As part of the agreement, ICMR will contribute anonymised and ethics-approved health research datasets, AI models and toolkits developed under its Medical Information Data for AI Solutions (MIDAS) framework to the AIKosh platform. The move is expected to improve access to high-quality biomedical datasets for researchers, startups and innovators working in healthcare AI.
The collaboration also includes access to advanced computing infrastructure. IndiaAI will provide ICMR with GPU-based and high-performance computing facilities at subsidised rates, helping bridge infrastructure gaps in scaling AI-led healthcare research and applications.
Another key focus area will be the co-development of AI-driven solutions aimed at addressing priority public health challenges in India. These solutions will combine ICMR’s disease burden data and healthcare expertise with IndiaAI’s technology stack and AI ecosystem.
The latest agreement builds on earlier collaborations between the two institutions. In September 2025, IndiaAI and National Institute for Research in Digital Health and Data Sciences were recognised as Pioneer Countries under the HealthAI Global Regulatory Network, a global initiative co-founded with the United Kingdom and Singapore to promote responsible governance of AI in healthcare.
A subsequent tripartite agreement between IndiaAI, ICMR’s digital health institute and HealthAI further strengthened efforts to build ethical and scalable AI frameworks for healthcare applications in India.
The new partnership is expected to encourage faster innovation at the intersection of healthcare and technology while ensuring strong safeguards around ethics, privacy and regulation. As India sharpens its AI ambitions, the focus appears to be shifting from simply building smarter tools to ensuring they also deliver healthier outcomes.
