India is not one AI market. It is fifty of them — each city moving at its own pace, shaped by its own industries, universities, government priorities, and investor appetite. The India AI Readiness Index 2025–26 (IARI) is the first annual benchmark designed to map that complexity honestly. It ranks 50 cities from Bengaluru to Kohima across seven dimensions of AI readiness, giving every stakeholder — investor, policymaker, founder, or researcher — a clear, evidence-based picture of where artificial intelligence is genuinely taking root in urban India.

This is not a list of cities with the most startups. Nor is it a government report measuring digital infrastructure alone. IARI asks a harder question: which cities have built the full stack of conditions — talent, policy, connectivity, capital, civic will, and entrepreneurial culture — that allow AI to compound over time? Cities that score well on IARI are not just tech hubs; they are places where AI is being deployed in factories, farms, hospitals, and city halls, not just in co-working spaces.

The 2025–26 edition covers every major Indian state and union territory, deliberately including Northeast India and smaller capitals that larger indices overlook. A city scoring 20 today with improving connectivity and high literacy rates may be a more interesting opportunity than a stagnant city scoring 60. IARI captures that nuance — and every city entry links to a full, free AI landscape report on IndianAI.in so you can go deeper on any city that interests you.

Why this index exists

Most conversations about AI in India collapse into a familiar shorthand: Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mumbai. Those cities matter enormously — and they deserve their Elite-tier positions. But the conversation stops too soon. India has 640,000 villages and 8,000 towns. The AI opportunities embedded in a cotton-farming cluster in Nagpur, a diamond-cutting SME belt in Surat, or a high-literacy hill town in Mizoram are real, underexplored, and potentially transformative.

IndianAI.in built IARI because the people who most need this information — a state government official wondering whether to invest in an AI lab, a Series A founder deciding where to open a second office, a foreign fund evaluating India's next wave of AI-native companies — were making decisions based on incomplete data, outdated anecdotes, or pure instinct.

We want every city on this list to use its report as a mirror, not a verdict. A Foundational-tier score is not a failure; it is a precise diagnosis. It tells a city exactly which pillar to invest in first. And it tells founders and investors exactly where the asymmetric opportunity lies — in places where the conditions are building quietly, before the crowd arrives.

The index is free, publicly accessible, and updated annually. It is editorially independent. No city paid to be ranked or to improve its score. The methodology is published in full, and we welcome challenges to it.

Who this is for

Four audiences, four different reads

Investors & VCs: Use tier scores and pillar breakdowns to identify asymmetric bets — cities where talent is ahead of capital, or where policy is building faster than the startup ecosystem has noticed.

Step 1 — Start with the tier, not the rank

The five tiers — Elite, Advanced, Emerging, Developing, Foundational — matter more than the exact rank within a tier. The difference between rank 3 and rank 5 within Elite is marginal; the difference between Elite and Advanced is structural. Use tiers as your first filter.

Step 2 — Read the score as a composite, not an absolute

A score of 72 means Kochi is performing well across all seven pillars in aggregate. But that score could hide a city that is exceptional on talent (pillar score: 88) but lagging on investment climate (pillar score: 51). Full pillar-by-pillar breakdowns are available in each city's individual report on IndianAI.in.

Step 3 — Use the sector pills to find your market

Every city card shows 2–3 sector pills — the industries where AI is either already deployed or where the conditions for breakthrough adoption are strongest. If you work in healthcare AI, filter for cities with a Health AI pill. If you are building for agri-tech, sort by Agri AI tags.

Step 4 — Click through to the city report

Each card links to a full IndianAI.in city report — typically 1,500–2,500 words — covering the local startup ecosystem, key institutions, government initiatives, case studies, and a forward outlook. The score on this page is the summary; the report is the story.

Step 5 — Track movement, not just position

IARI is updated annually. A city moving from score 48 to score 61 in one year is telling you something far more important than its absolute rank. Watch the direction of travel. The biggest investment opportunities in the next cycle will be Emerging cities that are accelerating, not Elite cities that are already priced in.

Plain-language methodology

How cities are scored — in plain English

IARI scores each city across seven pillars, each weighted to reflect its relative importance in determining long-term AI ecosystem health:

Frequently asked questions