Sarvam Indus AI 2026: India's First Sovereign Chat App — Complete Guide to Features, Models, and Why It Matters
Sarvam Indus AI is India's first sovereign chat application — built entirely in India, powered by homegrown large language models, supporting all 22 official Indian languages, and designed for the 1.4 billion people who have never had an AI that truly speaks their language. Launched in February 2026 by Sarvam AI — the startup selected by India's AI Mission to build the country's first sovereign LLM ecosystem — Indus is not a repackaged version of a foreign model. It is a ground-up AI built on Sarvam-30B and Sarvam-105B: two indigenous models trained on Indian compute infrastructure, with Indian languages, Indian accents, and Indian context at the core.
This is India's answer to ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude. Not a copy — a competitor. In 2026, Sarvam's models outperform Google Gemini Flash on key benchmarks, beat ChatGPT, Gemini 3 Pro, and DeepSeek OCR v2 on document recognition, and do it all while keeping India's data in India. This guide covers everything you need to know about Sarvam Indus — what it is, what models power it, how to access and use it, and what it means for the future of AI in India and for Indian businesses.
What Is Sarvam Indus AI 2026?
Sarvam Indus AI is a general-purpose AI chat application built entirely in India by Sarvam AI, available on iOS, Android, and web as of February 2026. It is powered by Sarvam's own large language models — developed from scratch in India using domestic compute infrastructure — and supports all 22 official Indian languages with native voice interaction. Indus competes directly with ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Anthropic's Claude, and Microsoft Copilot, but with a fundamental difference: it is India's data staying in India, on models built for Indian users.
Sarvam AI: The Company Behind Indus 2026
Sarvam AI was founded by Vivek Raghavan and Pratyush Kumar — two AI researchers who left leading global research positions to build India's sovereign AI stack from the ground up. In 2026, Sarvam AI was formally selected by India's AI Mission as the organisation to build India's first sovereign LLM ecosystem — a mandate backed by government compute infrastructure and institutional support. The result is Indus: a consumer chat app that brings that sovereign AI to every Indian's phone.
Sarvam Indus AI at a Glance 2026
| Attribute | Detail |
|---|---|
| Launch date | February 20, 2026 (beta) |
| Built by | Sarvam AI (Vivek Raghavan & Pratyush Kumar) |
| Models | Sarvam-30B and Sarvam-105B (open source) |
| Languages | All 22 official Indian languages + English |
| Platforms | iOS App Store, Google Play Store, Web (indus.sarvam.ai) |
| Access | Free beta (phone number + waitlist) |
| Mandate | India AI Mission — India's sovereign LLM ecosystem |
| Data sovereignty | Trained and hosted in India |
| Open source | Yes — both models released as open source |
Why India Needed a Sovereign Chat App in 2026
Every major AI chat platform in 2026 was built outside India — trained primarily on English-language data, optimised for Western users, hosted on US or European servers, and governed by foreign data laws. For 1.4 billion Indians, this meant using AI tools that understood English better than Hindi, had no grasp of regional dialects, and sent all conversation data to servers beyond India's legal reach.
The Problem with Foreign AI for Indian Users 2026
- Language gap: ChatGPT and Claude support a handful of Indian languages as an afterthought — Anthropic added 10 Indic languages to Claude in 2026. Sarvam supports all 22 official languages natively from day one, with models trained on Indian linguistic data
- Accent and context gap: Foreign AI models trained on English-first data do not understand Indian accents, code-switching (Hinglish), regional idioms, or India-specific cultural context
- Data sovereignty gap: Every query you send to ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude leaves India. In 2026, as AI becomes infrastructure, this creates significant risks for government, enterprise, and citizen data
- Accessibility gap: India is a voice-first nation — hundreds of millions of users are more comfortable speaking than typing, and in languages other than English. Foreign AI was not built for this reality
- Economic dependency: If India's AI infrastructure runs entirely on foreign models and APIs, India exports the value created by Indian users' data to American and European companies
India's Sovereign AI Moment in 2026
The India AI Impact Summit in February 2026 marked a turning point. India unveiled three major indigenous AI models — Sarvam AI's models, BharatGen Param 2, and Gnani — signalling a deliberate national strategy to move from AI consumer to AI creator. CEO Pratyush Kumar framed the challenge precisely: "The transition from 'I trained a model' to 'I'm using the model at population scale' — that is a problem worth solving." Indus is Sarvam's answer to that challenge.
What Models Power Indus AI 2026? Sarvam-30B and Sarvam-105B
Indus AI runs on two indigenous large language models that Sarvam unveiled at the India AI Impact Summit on February 18, 2026: Sarvam-30B (30 billion parameters) and Sarvam-105B (105 billion parameters). Both were trained entirely in India on domestic compute infrastructure with India AI Mission support, and both are released as open source — available for developers, enterprises, and government agencies to use and build on.
Sarvam-30B 2026
The 30-billion-parameter model is designed for efficiency — fast inference, lower compute cost, and broad accessibility. It handles general-purpose chat, document analysis, and multilingual conversations across Indian languages. The model is optimised for deployment on lower-cost infrastructure, making it viable for Indian startups, government applications, and edge deployment scenarios.
Sarvam-105B 2026
The 105-billion-parameter model is Sarvam's flagship intelligence — competitive with global frontier models on core benchmarks while being trained at a fraction of the cost. At approximately one-sixth the size of DeepSeek R1's 600-billion parameters, Sarvam-105B delivers competitive performance on mathematical reasoning, coding accuracy, and general problem-solving. Crucially, it costs less than Google's Gemini Flash while outperforming it on several benchmark tasks in 2026.
Sarvam Vision 2026
Alongside the language models, Sarvam developed a Vision model for document and image recognition. Sarvam Vision scores 84.3% on olmOCR-Bench in 2026 — outperforming Google Gemini 3 Pro, OpenAI ChatGPT, and DeepSeek OCR v2 on multi-script and complex document recognition. This is particularly significant for India, where documents span Devanagari, Tamil script, Telugu script, and dozens of other writing systems that foreign OCR systems routinely misread.
Sarvam Model Specifications 2026
| Model | Parameters | Best For | Open Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sarvam-30B | 30 billion | General chat, efficient inference, edge deployment | Yes |
| Sarvam-105B | 105 billion | Complex reasoning, coding, multilingual depth | Yes |
| Sarvam Vision | Not disclosed | Document OCR, image analysis, multi-script recognition | Yes |
| Speech models | Not disclosed | Voice transcription, dubbing, translation — 22 Indian languages | Partial |
How Sarvam Models Perform vs Global AI 2026
Sarvam's models are not just India-focused — they are competitive with global AI systems on objective benchmarks in 2026. The company benchmarked its models against Gemma 27B, Mistral-32-24B, Nemotron-30B, Qwen-30B, and GPT-OSS-20B across tasks measuring mathematical reasoning, coding accuracy, and general problem-solving.
| Benchmark Category | Sarvam Performance | Global Comparison |
|---|---|---|
| Document OCR (olmOCR-Bench) | 84.3% accuracy | Beats Gemini 3 Pro, ChatGPT, DeepSeek OCR v2 |
| Mathematical reasoning | Competitive with frontier models | Matches Gemma 27B, Mistral-32-24B class |
| Coding accuracy | Competitive with frontier models | Within range of GPT-OSS-20B, Qwen-30B |
| Indian language understanding | Best in class | Significantly outperforms ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini on Indian languages |
| Cost vs performance | Cheaper than Gemini Flash | Better cost-efficiency for Indian use cases |
The key insight in 2026: Sarvam is not claiming to beat GPT-4o or Gemini Ultra at everything. It is claiming — and demonstrating — that it beats global models specifically on Indian language tasks, document recognition of Indian scripts, and cost-efficiency for Indian deployment. That is the right competition to win.
How to Access and Get Started with Sarvam Indus AI 2026
Indus AI is available in beta in 2026 through three platforms: web, Android, and iOS. Access requires phone number verification and a place in the waitlist, though invite codes allow immediate access.
Step 1: Choose Your Platform 2026
- Web: Go to indus.sarvam.ai in any browser on desktop or mobile
- Android: Search "Indus AI" on Google Play Store and install the app
- iOS: Search "Indus AI" on Apple App Store and install the app
Step 2: Sign Up with Your Phone Number 2026
Enter your Indian mobile number. Receive an OTP. Verify and create your account. Sarvam uses phone number verification — not email — which lowers the barrier to entry for Indian users who may not have reliable email access.
Step 3: Access the App 2026
After verification, most users are placed on a waitlist. If you have an invite code from Sarvam or a current Indus user, enter it at signup to skip the waitlist and access immediately. The beta is rolling out in waves across India in February 2026.
Step 4: Choose Your Language and Start Chatting 2026
Select your preferred Indian language or use English. Type or speak your first query. Indus handles seamless language switching — start in English, switch to Hindi mid-sentence, continue in Hinglish — without any reconfiguration. The AI understands context across languages within a single conversation.
Key Features of Indus AI 2026
Indus AI in 2026 is a general-purpose AI assistant with a set of core capabilities designed specifically for Indian users — not a stripped-down version of a global product.
AI Chat 2026
General-purpose conversational AI for questions, research, writing, analysis, and exploration in English and 22 Indian languages. Handles everyday queries from education and agriculture to business and local search — the broad range CEO Pratyush Kumar described as the app's core purpose in 2026.
Voice Interaction 2026
Voice is not an add-on feature in Indus — it is the primary interaction mode. Users can ask questions, give commands, and receive responses verbally in their preferred Indian language. The speech models are trained with Indian accents and intonations, with 35+ voices across 11 languages, so responses sound natural rather than foreign. Voice-first design means Indus is accessible to users who struggle with typing or who prefer their mother tongue.
Document Upload and Analysis 2026
Upload PDFs, images, and documents for AI-powered analysis. Indus reads, summarises, and answers questions about your documents. The Sarvam Vision model — which outperforms Gemini 3 Pro and ChatGPT on multi-script OCR in 2026 — means Indus can accurately process documents in Indian scripts that foreign AI tools misread or struggle with.
Document Writing and Editing 2026
Write notes, draft documents, and edit content directly inside the Indus app. This makes Indus useful for professionals, students, and small business owners who need a full-featured writing assistant in their own language — not just a Q&A bot.
Web Research 2026
Indus performs web searches and deep research to answer queries with current information. This positions it alongside Perplexity and ChatGPT's browsing mode — but with the advantage of understanding India-specific search intent, local sources, and regional context that global AI often misses.
AI Agents (Coming 2026)
Sarvam has confirmed that AI agents will be added to Indus to automate tasks within the app. This extends Indus from a chat interface into an action-taking AI — similar to how ChatGPT Tasks and Claude Projects work, but built for Indian workflows and Indian enterprise use cases.
Indian Language Support: All 22 Official Languages in 2026
The single biggest differentiator between Indus and every foreign AI platform in 2026 is language depth. Indus supports all 22 official Indian languages — not as translations of English outputs, but as native first-class languages in models trained on Indian linguistic data from the start.
Languages Supported by Indus AI 2026
| Language | Region | Voice Support |
|---|---|---|
| Hindi | Pan-India | Yes (multiple accents) |
| Bengali | West Bengal, Bangladesh | Yes |
| Tamil | Tamil Nadu, Sri Lanka | Yes |
| Telugu | Andhra Pradesh, Telangana | Yes |
| Marathi | Maharashtra | Yes |
| Gujarati | Gujarat | Yes |
| Kannada | Karnataka | Yes |
| Malayalam | Kerala | Yes |
| Punjabi | Punjab | Yes |
| Odia | Odisha | Yes |
| Assamese, Urdu, Sanskrit + 11 more | Pan-India | Expanding in 2026 |
Code-Switching: The Hinglish Advantage 2026
One of the most uniquely Indian linguistic phenomena is code-switching — fluidly moving between two or more languages within a single conversation. A typical educated Indian urban user does not speak pure Hindi or pure English. They speak Hinglish. Similarly, Tamil speakers mix Tamil and English. Bengali speakers mix Bengali and English. Foreign AI models fail at this because they were not trained on this linguistic reality. Sarvam Indus handles code-switching natively because its models were trained on Indian conversational data in 2026 — the way Indians actually speak and write.
Why Indus Is Voice-First by Design in 2026
India is a voice-first nation. This is not a preference — it is a demographic and linguistic reality. Hundreds of millions of Indians are more comfortable speaking than typing, particularly in their regional languages where keyboard input is cumbersome. CEO Pratyush Kumar stated plainly: "India is a voice-first nation," and Sarvam designed Indus around this fact from day one in 2026.
Why Voice Matters More in India Than Anywhere 2026
- Literacy spectrum: Not all Indian users are equally comfortable with text-based interfaces, particularly in regional languages
- Typing friction: Switching keyboard languages on a smartphone is tedious — voice removes this barrier entirely
- Natural interaction: Speaking to an AI in your own language and dialect feels natural; typing a transliterated version of your mother tongue does not
- Rural and Tier 3 reach: Voice-first design opens AI to agricultural workers, small traders, and rural communities who have smartphones but do not use them for text-heavy applications
- Speed: Speaking is 3-5x faster than typing — for users who just need a quick answer, voice interaction is simply more efficient
Sarvam's speech models support 35+ voices across 11 Indian languages, trained specifically on Indian accents and intonations. When Indus responds verbally to a question asked in Tamil, it sounds like an Indian voice speaking Tamil — not a robotic translation of an English-first AI.
Indus AI vs ChatGPT vs Gemini vs Claude in 2026
The honest comparison in 2026 is not about who writes better English prose. It is about who serves Indian users better — across the dimensions that matter most for India's 1.4 billion people.
| Dimension | Sarvam Indus | ChatGPT (OpenAI) | Gemini (Google) | Claude (Anthropic) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Indian languages | All 22 official (native) | Handful (add-on) | 9+ Indian languages | 10 Indic languages |
| Voice in Indian languages | Yes — 35+ voices, Indian accents | Limited | Partial | No native voice |
| Code-switching (Hinglish) | Native handling | Poor | Moderate | Limited |
| Data sovereignty | India — trained and hosted domestically | US servers | US servers | US servers |
| Open source models | Yes (Sarvam-30B, 105B) | No (GPT-4o) | Partial (Gemma) | No |
| India-specific benchmarks | Best in class | Moderate | Moderate | Moderate |
| Document OCR (Indian scripts) | 84.3% (beats global leaders) | Lower on Indic scripts | Lower (beaten by Sarvam Vision) | Limited |
| India AI Mission backed | Yes — sovereign mandate | No | No | No |
| English quality (global tasks) | Competitive for most use cases | Best in class | Very strong | Very strong |
| Pricing | Free beta | Free + $20/mo Plus | Free + $20/mo Advanced | Free + $20/mo Pro |
The honest verdict in 2026: For Indian language tasks, regional queries, voice interaction in mother tongue, and document processing of Indian scripts — Indus wins. For complex coding, advanced English reasoning, and global knowledge tasks — ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude remain stronger. The smart approach in 2026 is to use Indus where it excels and complement with global tools for tasks where it does not yet match.
India AI Mission and Sarvam's Sovereign Mandate 2026
The India AI Mission is the central government initiative to build India's AI infrastructure — compute, models, datasets, and applications — as national assets rather than dependencies on foreign platforms. In 2026, the government allocated significant resources to build shared GPU infrastructure and fund indigenous model development. Sarvam AI was selected as the organisation to lead India's sovereign LLM development under this mission.
What the India AI Mission Means for Indus 2026
- Domestic compute: Sarvam trained its models on India-based GPU infrastructure funded by the India AI Mission — not on AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud
- Government data access: The sovereign mandate gives Sarvam access to Indian government datasets for training — the kind of India-specific data that makes models genuinely understand Indian context
- Regulatory support: Government backing means Sarvam has a clearer path to deployment in regulated sectors — banking, healthcare, government services, and education
- Open source requirement: Part of the mandate is ensuring Indian AI models are open source — making Sarvam's models available to the entire Indian developer and enterprise ecosystem
Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, publicly praised Sarvam AI's approach in 2026 — a recognition that India's sovereign AI stack is serious, not aspirational.
Why Open Source Matters: Sarvam's Strategy 2026
Sarvam releasing both Sarvam-30B and Sarvam-105B as open source in 2026 is a strategic decision that amplifies India's AI ecosystem beyond what any single company could achieve alone.
What Open Source Enables in 2026
- Developer ecosystem: Any Indian developer can download, fine-tune, and build on Sarvam's models — creating thousands of India-specific applications that would not exist if the models were proprietary
- Enterprise adoption: Indian enterprises — banks, hospitals, manufacturers, e-commerce companies — can deploy Sarvam models on their own infrastructure without API dependency or data leaving their systems
- Government deployment: State governments, central ministries, and public sector organisations can run sovereign AI on Sarvam's open-source foundation without data sovereignty concerns
- Research advancement: India's AI research community gets world-class models to build on, accelerating the next generation of Indian AI innovation
- Global positioning: Open source models attract global developers — Sarvam's models become the reference point for multilingual Indian AI globally, not just domestically
How to Use Indus AI for Marketing and Business in 2026
For Indian marketers and business owners, Indus AI opens practical capabilities in 2026 that were either unavailable or significantly inferior on global platforms.
Regional Language Content Creation 2026
Indian businesses targeting Tier 2 and Tier 3 markets need content in Hindi, Tamil, Bengali, Telugu, and other regional languages. Indus AI generates genuinely natural regional language content — not awkward translations of English prompts — because the model was trained on Indian linguistic data. Write ad copy, social media posts, WhatsApp broadcast messages, and product descriptions in your customer's mother tongue.
Multilingual Customer Communication 2026
Draft customer service responses, WhatsApp messages, email templates, and chatbot scripts in multiple Indian languages simultaneously. Businesses with customers across India — D2C brands, healthcare providers, EdTech companies, financial services — can now communicate in regional languages without hiring regional language specialists for every market.
Document Analysis in Indian Scripts 2026
Sarvam Vision's document recognition capability outperforms global AI on Indian scripts in 2026. Businesses can upload contracts, invoices, government documents, and forms in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, or any Indian language and get accurate summaries and analysis — something ChatGPT and Gemini routinely get wrong on Devanagari and South Indian scripts.
Voice Content for Indian Audiences 2026
Sarvam's speech models enable voice content creation across Indian languages — voiceovers, audio summaries, voice chatbot scripts — with Indian accents that resonate with Indian audiences. For video content, podcasts, and voice-first marketing campaigns targeting regional India, this is a significant capability that no foreign AI platform matches in 2026.
Research on India-Specific Topics 2026
Indus's web research feature is more contextually accurate for India-specific topics — government schemes, local market data, regulatory information, cultural events, and regional news — than ChatGPT or Claude, which were trained on predominantly Western internet data.
Limitations and What to Watch in 2026
Honest assessment: Indus AI in 2026 is a beta product with significant promise and real current limitations. Understanding both is important for businesses deciding how to integrate it.
Current Limitations 2026
- Beta access: Most users are on a waitlist as of February 2026 — full open availability is not confirmed yet
- English-first professional tasks: For complex coding, long-form English writing, and advanced reasoning, ChatGPT-4o and Claude 3.5 Sonnet remain stronger in 2026
- Ecosystem maturity: ChatGPT has plugins, GPTs, and extensive third-party integrations. Indus is starting fresh — AI agents and integrations are promised but not yet live
- Track record: Global AI platforms have years of user feedback and iteration. Sarvam-105B was unveiled February 2026 — the model will improve but has a shorter track record
- Regional language depth: While all 22 languages are supported, voice and depth may be stronger in major languages (Hindi, Tamil, Bengali) than in smaller-population languages in 2026
What to Watch in 2026
- Open waitlist: When Indus goes fully open — likely mid-2026 — usage data will reveal real-world performance vs benchmarks
- AI agents launch: The promised task automation agents within Indus could be a significant differentiator for Indian enterprise users
- API adoption: How fast Indian developers and enterprises adopt Sarvam's open-source models will determine the size of India's sovereign AI ecosystem by end of 2026
- Model updates: Sarvam-30B and 105B will be updated — tracking benchmark improvements will show how quickly the indigenous models close the gap with global frontier AI
FAQs: Sarvam Indus AI 2026
What is Sarvam Indus AI and how is it different from ChatGPT 2026?
Sarvam Indus AI is India's first sovereign chat application, launched in February 2026. Unlike ChatGPT — which is trained on English-first data, hosted on US servers, and not designed for Indian languages — Indus is built on Sarvam-30B and Sarvam-105B models trained entirely in India, supports all 22 official Indian languages natively, is voice-first with Indian accent models, and keeps data under Indian sovereignty. Both models are open source.
What models power Sarvam Indus AI in 2026?
Indus is powered by Sarvam-30B (30 billion parameters) and Sarvam-105B (105 billion parameters) — both unveiled at the India AI Impact Summit on February 18, 2026, trained from scratch in India on domestic compute. Sarvam-105B outperforms Google Gemini Flash on cost benchmarks. Sarvam Vision scores 84.3% on document OCR, beating Gemini 3 Pro, ChatGPT, and DeepSeek OCR v2 on Indian script recognition. All models are open source.
How many Indian languages does Sarvam Indus support 2026?
Indus supports all 22 official Indian languages in 2026. Speech and text-to-speech models are live for 11 languages with 35+ Indian-accent voices, expanding to all 22. Indus natively handles code-switching — Hinglish, Tamil-English mixing, and other real-world Indian conversational patterns that foreign AI cannot handle accurately.
How do I access Sarvam Indus AI in 2026?
Access Indus at indus.sarvam.ai (web), on Google Play Store (Android), or on Apple App Store (iOS). Sign up with your Indian mobile number for OTP verification. You may be placed on a waitlist — an invite code from Sarvam or existing users allows immediate access. The beta is rolling out across India through February 2026.
Is Sarvam Indus AI free in 2026?
Sarvam Indus AI is free to use in beta as of February 2026. All features — chat, voice, document upload, web research, document writing — are included at no charge during beta. No paid tiers have been announced for the consumer app. Sarvam's enterprise APIs are separately priced. The Sarvam-30B and Sarvam-105B models are open source and free to download.
Key Takeaways: Sarvam Indus AI 2026
- Indus AI is India's first sovereign chat app in 2026 — built on Sarvam-30B and Sarvam-105B models trained entirely in India with India AI Mission backing, competing directly with ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude
- 22 Indian languages, voice-first, Indian accents in 2026 — Indus is the only AI chat app that genuinely understands how Indians speak, including code-switching (Hinglish) that foreign AI cannot handle
- Sarvam-105B outperforms Gemini Flash on cost and Sarvam Vision beats Gemini 3 Pro on Indian document OCR in 2026 — this is not aspirational positioning, it is benchmark performance
- Both models are open source in 2026 — Indian developers, enterprises, and government agencies can build on Sarvam's foundation without API lock-in or data sovereignty concerns
- For Indian marketers, the use cases are immediate in 2026 — regional language content, multilingual customer communication, Indian script document analysis, and voice content with Indian accents are all live today
- The limitation is honest: For English-first professional tasks and complex coding, global AI still leads in 2026 — use Indus where it excels, complement with global tools for everything else
- Building an AI-first marketing strategy for India in 2026? Distk (distk.in) integrates AI tools — including India-first platforms like Indus — into full-funnel growth systems for Indian startups and businesses scaling from regional to global.