India’s artificial intelligence ambitions will require much more than indigenous foundation models, according to Pankaj Mitra, Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, who said the country needs to build a complete sovereign AI stack spanning infrastructure, data, applications and intelligent systems.

His comments come as Bessemer Venture Partners, alongside HCLTech and existing investors including Khosla Ventures and Peak XV Partners, participated in a $234 million funding round in homegrown AI company Sarvam, propelling it into the unicorn club.

“India will have its place in the world. We’re looking at the entire sovereign stack. We will invest across enterprise AI, and sovereign AI will be a core theme,” Mitra told Business Standard.

The remarks underscore a growing shift in investor thinking as countries increasingly seek technological self-reliance in AI amid geopolitical tensions and concerns around access to critical technologies.

While sovereign AI discussions have largely centred on building domestic large language models, Mitra argued that models represent only one layer of a much broader ecosystem required to support national-scale AI capabilities.

“For the country to serve mission-critical sectors and national infrastructure, the country would need a complete AI stack and not just sovereign AI models,” he said.

According to Mitra, the sovereign AI stack begins with foundational layers such as energy, compute infrastructure and data resources, before extending into higher-value components including AI agents, software services and robotics.

“This stack runs across foundational energy, compute and data — the raw materials that any AI ecosystem needs — to agents, services and robotics. Our thesis is really on India’s sovereignty. Models are a very important component, but it does not stop there,” he added.

Mitra noted that India’s requirements differ from those of many global markets, particularly because of its linguistic diversity and large-scale deployment opportunities in voice-led and agentic AI workflows.

Bessemer Venture Partners has been investing in India since 2006. The firm launched its first India-focused fund of $220 million in 2021, followed by a second India-dedicated fund of $350 million in 2023.

Mitra joined Bessemer in 2025 and focuses on investments across enterprise technology, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity.

The growing emphasis on AI sovereignty has gained momentum globally as governments increasingly view advanced AI systems as strategic assets.

The issue came into sharper focus last week when the United States government reportedly ordered a suspension of access to Anthropic’s latest AI models on national security grounds, disrupting the availability of advanced agentic AI capabilities in certain international markets.

Such developments, industry observers say, are reinforcing the need for countries to build independent AI capabilities across the technology stack rather than relying exclusively on foreign providers.

For investors such as Bessemer, this creates opportunities across multiple layers of the ecosystem, ranging from foundational infrastructure and AI models to enterprise applications and autonomous systems.

The funding round in Sarvam reflects that broader thesis. The company has positioned itself as a full-stack AI player developing indigenous foundation models and AI infrastructure tailored for Indian enterprises and public-sector use cases.

As governments and enterprises increasingly seek control over critical AI capabilities, sovereign AI is expected to emerge as one of the defining investment themes of the coming decade.

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