SAHI And BODH India’s AI Health Care Launch At India AI Summit 2026

In India AI Summit 2026 the Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare, Shri JP Nadda, unveiled two transformative AI-driven initiatives ‘SAHI’ and ‘BODH’. These inititives represent a significant milestone in India’s journey toward integrating artificial intelligence into the public healthcare ecosystem, aiming to make medical services more accessible, efficient, and data-driven.

The launched two key initiatives; the Strategy for Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare for India (SAHI) and the Benchmarking Open Data Platform for Health AI (BODH) at the India AI Summit at Bharat Mandapam. These initiatives serve as the foundational pillars for India’s future healthcare strategy and India’s commitment to moving beyond experimentation into a structured, safe, and population-scale deployment of Artificial Intelligence.

#HealthForAll

Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare Shri Jagat Prakash Nadda Launches SAHI and BODH Initiatives to Strengthen Responsible Health AI Ecosystem at the India AI Impact Summit 2026

SAHI to Guide Ethical, Transparent and People-Centric Use of AI in Healthcare:… pic.twitter.com/HCeIETC5SB

— Ministry of Health (@MoHFW_INDIA) February 17, 2026

SAHI: Strategy for Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare for India

SAHI is not a software tool, but a national guidance framework designed to enable the safe, ethical, evidence-based, and inclusive adoption of Artificial Intelligence across India’s healthcare system. It aims to provide strategic direction on governance, data stewardship, validation, deployment, and monitoring of AI solutions.

• Governance & Ethics: Establishes clear guardrails to ensure AI assists doctors rather than replacing them, maintaining the sanctity of the physician-patient relationship.

• Data Stewardship: Provides a standardized approach for how health data should be managed and protected across states.

• Standardization: Offers a national direction for validating and monitoring AI tools to prevent fragmented or biased implementations.

• It will support States governments and private institutions in responsible adoption aligned with public health priorities like maternal health and infectious disease screening.

BODH: Benchmarking Open Data Platform for Health AI

BODH is developed by Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in collaboration with the National Health Authority (NHA). BODH is the technical engine that ensures AI tools actually work as promised before they reach the public. Its primary objective is a privacy-preserving benchmarking platform that enables rigorous evaluation of AI models using diverse, real-world health data without sharing underlying datasets. The key features includes:

• Real-World Testing: Allows developers to test their AI models against diverse, high-quality Indian datasets to ensure accuracy across different demographics.

• Privacy-First Health Care Architecture: Utilizes advanced technical frameworks to evaluate models without ever exposing or sharing the underlying sensitive patient data.

• Digital Public Good: Integrated under the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM), making it a transparent resource for startups and researchers.

• Quality Assurance: Acts as a "certified seal" of reliability, building trust among healthcare providers and citizens.

The launch of both SAHI and BODH initiatives marks a shift towards Responsible AI’ and globally competitive health AI ecosystem. India is positioning itself as a global leader in Health AI, particularly for the Global South. These frameworks aim to reduce diagnostic errors, optimize hospital management, and extend high-quality care to the remotest corners of the country.

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