The Union government will publish a “regulation-focused consultation paper which focuses on AI safety”, IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Thursday, 8 October 2026, according to The Hindu.
He asked his ministry to release the paper within a month.
Quick Facts
| Announcement | 8 October 2026 |
| Timeline | Consultation paper within a month |
| Main concern | Deepfakes and other harms from AI |
| GPU demand estimate | 10,000 |
| First GPU tender | 5,000 |
What the Minister Said
Vaishnaw was speaking about deepfakes at the launch of the World Bank’s 2026 World Development Report.
The harms caused by AI to society “are a nuisance which can cause huge problems”, he said.
“We have to bring a techno-legal solution. We have to have the stakeholders onboarded because bulk of this regulation will have to be taken by the industry itself.”
AI in Education
The minister said the government has worked with the industry on AI as it did in semiconductors and telecom.
A series of joint workshops involving the IT ministry, the Ministry of Education and industry is planned, so that universities and colleges can adopt a new curriculum.
AI in Government
For government use, Vaishnaw said, “we will be empanelling some of the models or the solutions”. Selected firms and start-ups will then be able to bid when a department wants to use AI.
Computing Power
The government has issued a request for graphics processing units to run AI workloads. “Our demand estimate is for 10,000 GPUs and the first tender that we are coming out is for 5000,” he said.
Source: The Hindu (9 October 2026).
Featured image: Ashwini Vaishnaw taking charge as a Union minister in July 2021 (file photo). Photo by the Ministry of Railways, licensed under Government Open Data License – India, via Wikimedia Commons.
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