As artificial intelligence (AI) reforms global healthcare, India, with growing digital infrastructure, a vast and varied patient database, and start-up agility, stands at a defining inflection point. Further, by 2025, the contribution of the Indian healthcare sector to the country’s GDP is estimated to be $650 billion, and AI is expected to contribute approximately $30 billion. Thus, India is no longer a passive participant but an emerging pioneer in the AI revolution.
Co-founder and CEO
CLIRNET and DocTube
The convergence of necessity, innovation, and scale is creating a unique opportunity. While the U.S. and China lead in research funding and industrial infrastructure, India’s distinctive strength lies in building inclusive, affordable, and scalable healthcare AI — the kind the world’s majority actually needs.
1. The Perfect Storm of Opportunity
The Indian healthcare system has long struggled with challenges like a low doctor-patient ratio, a lack of accessibility between villages and cities, extremely low focus on preventive healthcare and a population of 1.4 billion. These challenges, in turn, have fuelled innovation and led to the integration of the AI solutions.
Between 2016 and 2022, the Indian healthcare sector had grown at a rate of 22.5% annually. With the integration of AI, the growth trajectory is rising. Unlike the developed and high-income nations, India uses AI for reimagining healthcare delivery by automating diagnostics, improving the excess and enabling early detections where healthcare specialists are scarce.
For example, Qure.ai’s AI-powered imaging tools detect tuberculosis and stroke across public hospitals. In 2024, it raised $65 million from Merck’s Global Health Innovation Fund, and is exporting its radiology AI to countries like the UK and Italy. Niramai’s Thermalytix, a non-invasive breast cancer screening platform, is making preventive care available to women in low-resource settings. It is also set to enter the markets in Africa and Latin America. In Tamil Nadu, SigTuple is cutting lab turnaround time from days to minutes in rural areas by automating pathology testing.
It should be noted that they are not pilot projects, but scalable solutions that will potentially serve millions. So, in India, AI healthcare innovation is not just hype-driven but need-driven.
2. Building the Foundation: Government Leadership
India’s progress is not accidental but is the outcome of strategic public policy and well-developed digital infrastructure. The Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) is a live example. It has already issued health IDs for over 500 million people and linked more than 300 million health records across 200,000 registered health facilities.
This national digital backbone facilitates interoperable and secure data exchange, which is the essential raw material for effective AI models. Further, India has a federated and consent-driven digital public goods approach, which offers a scalable template for the entire globe.
Further, the partnership between the National Health Authority and IIT Kanpur is structuring open standards for AI model validation. On the other hand, NITI Aayog’s cancer database, which contains pathology and radiology data of more than 20,000 patients, is facilitating India-specific model training for diseases that have a high national burden.
3. The Data Advantage: Diversity as Strength
India’s diversity is its greatest AI asset. With the existence of multiple genetic lineages, various disease burdens, and healthcare delivery contexts, intelligent and smart AI systems are being developed. Moreover, AI systems capable of handling variation and complexity are more generalizable and resilient. In contrast, Western AI systems are trained mostly on homogeneous datasets; thus, they are not fit for a diverse population, limiting their application globally. Over time, the rich and heterogeneous Indian data ecosystem could make the country a global powerhouse for AI model training.
4. Frugal Engineering Meets AI
Frugal engineering has been the core of Indian innovation. The ability to deliver high-quality outcomes at low cost is also intersecting with the development of AI models. Today, pharmaceutical giants such as Sun Pharma and Dr. Reddy’s are tackling diseases with high national burden by integrating AI into drug discovery pipelines.
Globally, it is expected that by 2025, AI will drive 30% of new drug discoveries at 50% reduced cost. This could be pushed further by Indian firms that have leaner operations and local R&D, just as they did with vaccines and generics. This parallel is striking as the same principles had made India the “pharmacy of the world” and now all set to shape it as the “Healthcare AI lab of the world”. This will also democratize access to affordable and intelligent healthcare solutions.
5. Talent, Technology, and Collaboration
Every year, India produces more than 1.5 million engineers, many with expertise in data science, AI, and cloud computing and over 1.8 lakh doctors annually. Thus, the country’s unparalleled convergence of technological and clinical talent is accelerating innovation. Moreover, Indian-origin scientists are also leading global AI health research at organisations like Google, Microsoft, and DeepMind. This creates a feedback loop between global best practices and domestic innovation.
6. Challenges and India’s Pragmatic Responses
India’s road to AI healthcare leadership is not free from obstacles. Some of the vital concerns include:
- Data privacy.
- Long term investment into R&D
- Internet access gaps as in 2023, 45% of Indians did not have internet access.
- Algorithmic bias
- Regulatory uncertainty.
However, India is fighting these issues head-on e.g. the Digital Data Protection Act (2023) that includes clear privacy norms and AI sandbox initiatives, which encourage safe model testing. Even rapid smartphone penetration is minimising the digital divide, while tier-3 towns have also started adopting telehealth.
India is accelerating the refinement of the process for better embedding transparency, consent, and inclusion within public infrastructure.
7. The Global Impact: Local Innovation, Global Lessons
Healthcare-based AI Indian innovations have already started to influence other developing economies. Indian solutions, being affordable and context-sensitive, are naturally fitting for similar ecosystems like those of Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America.
In contrast to the EU’s emphasis on regulation and Silicon Valley’s focus on efficiency, India’s model balances between access and equity.
India is quietly shaping global standards by solving complex challenges like scalability, diversity, and affordability, thus, making AI ready to serve humanity beyond just for profitability.
Conclusion: From Follower to Frontrunner
India’s rise in AI-driven healthcare solutions mirrors the previous transformation it had brought in pharmaceuticals and vaccines. India’s diversity in genetic lineages and mastery in frugal innovation is making it stand at a defining inflection point.
The path forward demands sustained policy, collaboration between multiple stakeholders, and international partnerships. The best part is that the fundamentals, such as scale, data, and talent, are already in place.
In the coming decade, India’s model will act as the blueprint for an ethical, affordable, and human-centered healthcare solution, which the entire world looks to emulate.
–Authored by Saurav Kasera, Co – Founder and CEO at Clirnet and Doctube