Union Budget 2026 arrives at a moment when India’s artificial intelligence ambitions are well-funded and well-articulated, but increasingly constrained by execution and policy clarity. Over the last two years, the government has laid a strong foundation. The approval of the Rs 10,372 crore IndiaAI Mission in March 2024 marked a turning point, positioning artificial intelligence (AI) as core national infrastructure rather than a niche technology play. Since then, access to subsidised compute has expanded rapidly — from an initial target of 10,000 GPUs to over 38,000 GPUs today — while datasets, skilling programmes, foundation models and safety frameworks have begun taking shape.