NITI Aayog’s AI Roadmap Puts Healthcare in Focus

Medical devices and diagnostics are listed among 18 opportunity areas where AI adoption can drive growth.

NITI Aayog has placed healthcare among the priority sectors in its AI for Viksit Bharat Roadmap, released on September 15 in New Delhi.

The roadmap was launched along with the NITI Frontier Tech Repository, which showcases more than 200 impact stories from agriculture, healthcare, education, and national security.

The Frontier 50 program was also announced to support aspirational districts in adopting these technologies.

Genomics & Drug Discovery

The roadmap recommends creating a unified national omics dataset by sequencing over 10 million genomes by 2035 to enable AI-driven drug discovery and precision medicine.

It calls for the expansion of biotech parks and high-performance computing resources to support pharmaceutical research.

“The India AI Mission, with an estimated budget of over ₹10,000 Cr for five years, plans to deploy 38,000+ GPUs through a federated compute network,” the roadmap states. This infrastructure is intended to support large-scale research and development.

Policy measures suggested include a 30-day approval route for institution-initiated clinical trials, rolling data reviews, and digital submissions.

It also proposes mechanisms such as data exclusivity and a drug-access acceleration fund through the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council.

AI Kosh & Healthcare Data

AI Kosh, operated under the India AI Mission, currently hosts more than 350 curated non-personal datasets. The roadmap proposes expanding it to cover regulated sectoral datasets, including clinical and genomic data, under a tiered access framework.

“Pharmaceuticals: Building a unified national omics dataset by sequencing over 10M genomes by 2035 to fuel AI in drug discovery,” the document notes.

Medical Devices & Diagnostics

Medical devices and diagnostics are listed among 18 opportunity areas where AI adoption can drive growth. The roadmap suggests creating testing sandboxes, certification frameworks, and manufacturing data grids to accelerate the development and scale-up of medical devices.

The Frontier Tech Repository is positioned to help states and districts identify and adopt proven healthcare use cases.

According to the official statement, “The Frontier Tech Repository showcases 200+ impact stories from across India in four sectors, Agriculture, Healthcare, Education, and National Security.”

The healthcare proposals are linked to the broader India AI Mission, which includes a five-year budget of more than INR 10,000 Cr, deployment of over 38,000 GPUs, and expansion of data infrastructure.

Alongside the repository and Frontier 50 program, NITI Aayog also announced the Frontier Tech Impact Awards to recognize states implementing frontier technologies in sectors including healthcare.

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