Mitesh Khapra, Associate Professor at IIT Madras, has earned a spot on TIME magazine’s 2025 list of the 100 most influential people in artificial intelligence, joining global icons like Elon Musk and Sam Altman.
He is celebrated for his pioneering work in natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning, particularly his focus on Indian languages.
Unlike many honorees who head tech companies, Khapra’s contributions are rooted in academia.
He co-founded AI4Bharat, a groundbreaking initiative that develops open-source AI tools and datasets to make technology accessible in India’s diverse linguistic landscape.
TIME notes that almost every Indian startup building voice technology for regional languages depends on datasets created by Khapra and his team.
While global AI models excel in widely represented languages such as Hindi and Bengali, they falter in less-represented tongues.
To bridge this gap, AI4Bharat researchers traveled to nearly 500 districts across India, recording thousands of hours of voices covering all 22 official languages, cutting across varied educational and social backgrounds.
Khapra’s work has also been central to the government’s Bhashini mission, aimed at delivering digital services in local languages through AI.
Even global tech companies now rely on AI4Bharat datasets to improve performance in languages like Hindi and Marathi.
Reflecting on the shift, Khapra said: “Fifteen years ago, most PhD students in India working on language technology focused only on English. Today, thanks to these datasets, more Indian students are tackling challenges in Indian languages.”
The TIME 100 AI list is among the most prestigious recognitions in the tech world, spotlighting researchers, entrepreneurs, and policymakers shaping the future of artificial intelligence.