NPCI Partners with NVIDIA to Develop Sovereign AI Layer for India’s Digital Payments

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has entered into a strategic collaboration with NVIDIA to strengthen its sovereign artificial intelligence capabilities, aimed at supporting India’s rapidly expanding digital payments ecosystem, as per PTI report. 

Building A Payments-Native AI Foundation 

The initiative is designed to address the increasing complexity of operating population-scale, real-time payment systems, with a sharp focus on security, resilience, trust and system-wide efficiency. 

Under the collaboration, NPCI will leverage NVIDIA’s accelerated computing platforms and its Nemotron family of open-weight models to develop a payments-native AI foundation model. The model will be structured to comply with India’s regulatory framework and data sovereignty requirements. 

The partnership brings together NPCI’s operational expertise in managing high-volume digital payment rails and NVIDIA’s AI infrastructure capabilities, with the objective of embedding intelligence directly into core payment systems. 

From Pilot Assistants to Scalable AI Infrastructure 

NPCI’s AI deployment so far has been shaped by practical operational needs. It recently introduced the UPI Help Assistant as a pilot initiative, supported by FiMI (Financial Model for India), a fine-tuned Small Language Model built specifically for the payments domain to streamline grievance resolution. 

The regulator-backed payments body now intends to move beyond standalone AI use cases and build a broader, scalable AI layer that can serve the entire payments ecosystem. 

Officials Statements 

Vishal Kanvaty, Chief Technology Officer, NPCI, said, “Through this collaboration with NVIDIA, NPCI aims to advance AI capabilities designed specifically for India's payments ecosystem. Drawing from our experience of operating population-scale, real-time payment systems, this initiative is designed to create a sovereign, payments-native AI foundation that strengthens trust, resilience, and security, while remaining aligned with India's regulatory and data sovereignty requirements". 

Vishal Dhupar, Managing Director, Asia South, NVIDIA, said, “India has one of the most advanced digital payment systems in the world that operates at population scale where trust, resilience, and performance are fundamental.  

With accelerated computing and AI, we aim to strengthen India's fintech infrastructure while enabling responsible innovation across the ecosystem”. 

Read More: NPCI Rolls Out UPI One World Wallet Service for Foreign Visitors at India AI Impact Summit! 

Conclusion 

By deepening its AI integration strategy, NPCI is positioning itself to enhance the robustness and intelligence of India’s digital payments infrastructure while maintaining regulatory alignment and system-wide stability. 

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