IIT Madras professor Mitesh Khapra joins Elon Musk, Sam Altman on TIME's 100 most influential in AI

When TIME magazine unveiled its list of the 100 most influential people in artificial intelligence, the usual suspects like Elon Musk and Sam Altman were there. But among the global titans of industry and research, one name stood out for what it represents: Mitesh Khapra, an associate professor at IIT Madras.

For Khapra, this recognition is not about celebrity or commercial success. He doesn’t run a billion-dollar AI startup. He isn’t helming a tech empire. Instead, his influence stems from a mission: to make AI accessible to India’s 1.4 billion people, in their own languages.

From academia to national impact

At IIT Madras, where he teaches in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Khapra has become a catalyst for change in the way AI is taught, researched, and applied. His work in natural language processing and machine learning has trained generations of students, many of whom now hold key roles in the world’s leading AI companies.

But perhaps his most transformative contribution is AI4Bharat, the initiative he co-founded in 2019. AI4Bharat’s goal is deceptively simple: to collect and build open-source datasets and tools that allow AI systems to understand and process Indian languages. Behind that simplicity lies an immense effort, gathering speech data from hundreds of districts, standardising it, and releasing it for researchers and companies to use freely.

This work has not only reduced India’s dependence on English-first AI models but also created opportunities for students, engineers, and startups to build technology rooted in the country’s linguistic diversity.

The backbone of India’s language mission

AI4Bharat’s impact extends far beyond the walls of IIT. It has become a cornerstone of the Government of India’s Bhashini mission, an ambitious project to make digital services available in Indian languages through AI. Most of the data powering Bhashini comes directly from AI4Bharat.

Khapra has often argued that if even global giants adopt these datasets to improve their AI models in Hindi, Marathi, or Tamil, India will still benefit. His focus is not on ownership but on accessibility, ensuring that the tools of the AI era are not limited to English speakers.

Recognition on the world stage

TIME’s editors described Khapra as someone whose work “reshapes his nation’s academic research” in AI. For a country that is often celebrated for its software exports but criticised for lagging in original research, this recognition carries weight.

Why it matters

Inclusion in TIME’s list is not just a personal honour for Khapra. It is symbolic of a larger shift: India’s growing contribution to the global AI landscape, not by replicating Silicon Valley, but by focusing on problems unique to its people.

Khapra’s story demonstrates that influence in AI doesn’t always require a unicorn startup or a multibillion-dollar valuation. Sometimes, it comes from open-source code, datasets built district by district, and a belief that the future of AI must speak every language.