MeitY unveils three indigenous AI models under IndiaAI Mission
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has introduced three indigenous AI foundation models—EKA-1, Dhīr 2B, and Dhīr 5B—developed by Indian companies Socket AI and ZenteiQ under the IndiaAI Mission. These models are designed for specialized applications and can operate in secure, offline environments.
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Models and capabilities
The three models—EKA-1, Dhīr 2B, and Dhīr 5B—were unveiled by MeitY Secretary S. Krishnan as part of the IndiaAI Mission. EKA-1 is a 26-billion-parameter model focused on mathematics, coding, and reasoning. It was trained on 7.5 trillion tokens and supports over 100 languages, including programming languages.
EKA-1 is designed for multi-step tasks, code execution, and deployment in on-premises, private cloud, or air-gapped environments, where internet access is restricted for security reasons.
Dhīr 2B and Dhīr 5B are mixture-of-experts models trained from scratch using Google Cloud Tensor Processing Units (TPUs). They support English and 10 Indian languages and can run directly on mobile hardware without an internet connection.
Licensing and accessibility
ZenteiQ has released the model weights for Dhīr 2B and Dhīr 5B under the Apache 2.0 licence via AIKosh, a platform for sharing AI resources. The release includes technical documentation and evaluation tools to support adoption.
The models are tailored for applications beyond general-purpose use, including scientific research, cybersecurity, and enterprise adoption in secure environments.
Government intent and strategic significance
According to MeitY, these models are intended to strengthen India’s strategic autonomy in AI by expanding the availability of models tailored to domestic requirements. The government has also signalled continued support for refining and developing these models.
What this means
Lazyfounder analysis — our interpretation, not reported fact.
For Indian founders and operators, these models represent a step toward reducing dependence on global AI providers for specialized use cases. The ability to deploy models in air-gapped or offline environments could lower barriers for enterprises in regulated sectors like finance, healthcare, and government, where data sovereignty and security are critical. The release of model weights under an open licence may also accelerate experimentation and customization by startups and researchers, particularly for applications requiring support for Indian languages.
Related on Lazyfounder
Sources
- Mint (Technology) · 2026-11-03
MeitY unveils indigenous AI Models EKA-1, Dhīr 2B and 5B under IndiaAI mission
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About the author
Editor, Lazyfounder
Tarun Mottlia edits LazyFounders, covering Indian startups, funding rounds, AI and product launches. Every story on the site is AI-assisted and checked against its cited sources before publication.
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