Budget 2025: An Overview Of AI Initiatives — Transforming India's Future

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said during the budget announcement on Saturday that India is entering an era of over 10% compounded growth in the gross domestic product, aiming to become a $10 trillion economy within the next decade.

To achieve this, the centre has adopted five unstoppable forces:

• Agentic AI: Self-learning systems that independently enhance efficiency across various sectors.

• Green Energy Dominance: AI optimises the use of 100% renewable, ultra-low-cost energy sources.

• Manufacturing 6.0: Envisions autonomous factories, AI-driven supply chains, and quantum-encrypted logistics.

• Financial Capital Expansion: Involves the globalisation of the rupee, AI-powered fintech innovations and the development of deep capital markets.

• Next-Gen Global Services: Includes AI-native, no-code, high-margin consulting and digital enterprises.

These forces are set to drive India's growth and transformation in the coming decade.

Sitharaman stated that the decision to allow 100% foreign direct investment in the insurance sector will unlock billions in foreign capital, supercharging India's financial ecosystem. This will help in establishing the world's largest AI-powered insurance ecosystem, providing hyper-personalised, on-demand coverage for every individual.

This includes driving advancements in AI-led risk modeling, ensuring quantum-encrypted financial security, and enabling real-time claims processing.

In the agriculture sector, Sitharaman emphasised the potential of AI in promoting natural farming and optimising soil microbiomes to replace chemical fertilisers. Autonomous drone-based seeding, multi-spectral crop monitoring and AI-driven harvesting are being employed to enhance crop yields.

AI-controlled watershed management and desalination-to-irrigation systems are being used to eliminate water scarcity. These advanced technologies collectively aim to improve agricultural efficiency and sustainability.

Sitharaman highlighted that autonomous logistics and blockchain-traced cold storage systems will reduce post-harvest losses to nearly zero.

Direct-to-consumer AI food processing aims to eliminate intermediaries and double farmers' incomes. Additionally, AI-powered global agriculture exports will position India as the food security capital of the world.

In the education sector, the finance minister highlighted the vision of "Education for an AI-First India", aiming to transform every child into an AI-powered innovator. While the world debates AI's impact on jobs, India is gearing up its youth to lead the AI revolution.

To achieve this, outdated rote learning and examinations will be replaced with AI-powered personal learning mentors for every student. Vocational AI-led apprenticeships in real-world industries will begin from age 14.

National AI-based skill matching will ensure zero learning waste and 100% job alignment. Traditional exams will be replaced with project-based assessments. The outcome will be an innovation-first workforce, fully aligned with AI-driven industry demands.

By 2030, India aims to be the only major economy with a 100% AI-optimised renewable energy grid. This includes AI-led energy balancing across solar, wind, nuclear, biofuels and hydrogen.

The development of AI-powered small modular nuclear reactors and thorium fuel plants will play a key role, alongside autonomous, AI-driven hydrogen electrolysers that will make green hydrogen India's largest export.

As a result, India will have the lowest energy costs globally, leading to high industrial competitiveness and attracting massive global investments.

Manufacturing 6.0 will be defined by AI-native factories over the next three years. These will feature agentic AI-powered production lines that are autonomous, self-correcting and nearly defect-free.

Every factory will have digital twins to predict supply-chain disruptions before they occur, and edge AI-optimised quantum-encrypted logistics will ensure unbreakable supply chains. This transformation will make India the fastest, most cost-effective, AI-driven manufacturing hub in the world.

India will lead the world's AI-native service economy, moving beyond traditional BPO. Agentic AI will manage global business operations from India, while self-learning, no-code enterprise AI systems will replace traditional software.

AI-powered consulting, strategy, and decision support services will dominate global businesses. As a result, India will become the leader in high-margin global services.

AI-led fiscal policy will eliminate tax leakages through autonomous revenue intelligence, ensure a current account surplus via AI-led exports, and globalise the rupee through AI-powered fintech and trade dominance.

Consequently, the rupee will become a sought-after international settlement currency.