Paytm’s Vijay Shekhar Sharma wants India to build its own AI models, ready to fund the builders

Paytm founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma has offered to back Indian entrepreneurs building their own artificial intelligence models with money from his own pocket. Speaking this week at Cypher 2026, the AI conference in Bengaluru, Sharma said he would write cheques of Rs 1 crore to Rs 2 crore to founders willing to take on the challenge.

“Either come over, join us, or build your own and take money from me,” he said.

The offer turns a question India’s AI startup ecosystem has been debating, whether to build its own models or build on top of others’, into a personal commitment from one of the country’s best known technology founders.