New Delhi: IndiaAI, the national artificial intelligence programme under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), has opened applications for the IndiaAI Fellowship 2026 — a flagship talent-development scheme aimed at students working on AI-related projects and research. Applications will be accepted until November 30, 2026, through the official portal, fellowship.indiaai.gov.in.
The fellowship is one of the cornerstones of the IndiaAI Mission’s human-capital push, and the financial package is among the most generous student-research schemes of its kind. Undergraduate and Integrated Dual Degree (IDD) students can receive assistance of up to ₹1 lakh, while postgraduate students are eligible for up to ₹2 lakh. For doctoral scholars, the support is structured as a monthly fellowship: ₹70,000 per month in the first two years, ₹75,000 in the third year and ₹80,000 in the fourth and fifth years, alongside a research grant of ₹2 lakh per year.
There is also a significant international dimension. Students whose research papers are accepted at eligible international AI conferences can receive additional support of up to ₹1 lakh towards travel and accommodation — a direct acknowledgment that global exposure matters as much as laboratory funding for young researchers.
Eligibility is staged across the student journey. Students in three-year undergraduate programmes can apply from the fifth semester, those in four-year undergraduate programmes from the seventh semester, and students in five-year Integrated Dual Degree programmes from the ninth semester. Postgraduate applicants are eligible from semesters one through three. The design suggests the programme wants to catch students at the point where serious project and thesis work begins — rather than spreading support thinly across entry-level coursework.
The intent, as stated under the IndiaAI Mission, is to build India’s AI research talent base from the ground up. With the country positioning itself as both a consumer and a producer of frontier AI capability, fellowships of this kind are meant to ensure that the pipeline of researchers, engineers and academics keeps pace with the Mission’s ambitions in compute, datasets and applied AI.
Applicants are advised to check the official portal for detailed guidelines and the documents required — typically academic records and endorsements from project guides. With the November 30 deadline, students aiming for this year’s cohort will want to begin their applications well before the window closes.
For India’s fast-growing AI ecosystem, the signal is clear: talent-building is now a national priority, and the next generation of researchers is being invited to the table with funding to match. Whether in a campus lab or on the stage of an international conference, the 2026 fellows will be among the first beneficiaries of that bet.
