Health and Me

Rachel V Thomas

India AI Summit: Union Health Minister Nadda Launches SAHI And BODH Initiatives To Boost AI In Healthcare

The Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare, JP Nadda, today launched two key national initiatives -- the Strategy for Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare for India (SAHI) and the Benchmarking Open Data Platform for Health AI (BODH) to boost the role of AI in the country's healthcare ecosystem.

The initiatives, launched at the India AI Summit at Bharat Mandapam, in the national capital, are aimed at promoting safe, transparent, and accountable AI in healthcare. It will also help strengthen the digital health ecosystem for equitable healthcare access.

SAHI is a national guidance framework to enable the safe, ethical, evidence-based, and inclusive adoption of AI across India’s healthcare system. 

It aims to provide strategic direction on governance, data stewardship, validation, deployment, and monitoring of AI solutions, while supporting States and institutions in responsible adoption aligned with public health priorities. 

"SAHI is not merely a technology strategy but a governance framework, policy compass, and national roadmap for the responsible use of AI in healthcare,” said Nadda. 

He stated that SAHI will guide India in leveraging AI in a manner that is ethical, transparent, accountable, and people-centric. Nadda also emphasized that SAHI provides a structured framework for collaboration, ensuring that innovation flourishes while public interest remains paramount. 

The second initiative, BODH, was developed by the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in collaboration with the National Health Authority. It is a privacy-preserving benchmarking platform that enables rigorous evaluation of AI models using diverse, real-world health data without sharing underlying datasets.

As a digital public good under the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission, it is designed to strengthen trust, transparency, and quality assurance in Health AI deployment.

"The collaboration between Government and academia has led to the development of BODH -- the Benchmarking Open Data Platform for Health AI -- which provides a structured mechanism for testing and validating AI solutions before deployment at scale,” said Nadda. 

Nadda reiterated that AI solutions must be rigorously evaluated for performance, reliability, and real-world readiness. Together, SAHI and BODH represent India’s commitment to building a trustworthy, inclusive, and globally competitive health AI ecosystem grounded in innovation, responsibility, and public trust.

<h2>AI An Indispensable Enabler to Viksit Bharat</h2>

Earlier, delivering the keynote address at a session themed “Innovation to Impact: AI as a Public Health Game-Changer”, at the Summit, Anupriya Patel, Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare, highlighted AI as an "All-Inclusive Intelligence". 

She also emphasized AI's potential in addressing "health inequities across the country". 

Patel called technology -- particularly AI "an indispensable enabler" in India's race towards the vision of a Viksit Bharat by 2047. 

She highlighted the potential role of AI on India’s vast and diverse population, the rural–urban divide, and the dual burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases, which present unique challenges. 

She also noted that AI has been integrated across the entire continuum of healthcare -- from disease surveillance and prevention to diagnosis and treatment.

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The Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare, JP Nadda, today launched two key national initiatives -- the Strategy for Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare for India (SAHI) and the Benchmarking Open Data Platform for Health AI (BODH) to boost the role of AI in the country's healthcare ecosystem. The initiatives, launched at the India AI Summit at Bharat Mandapam, in the national capital, are aimed at promoting safe, transparent, and accountable AI in healthcare. It will also help strengthen the digital health ecosystem for equitable healthcare access. What is SAHI and BODH?SAHI is a national guidance framework to enable the safe, ethical, evidence-based, and inclusive adoption of AI across India’s healthcare system. It aims to provide strategic direction on governance, data stewardship, validation, deployment, and monitoring of AI solutions, while supporting States and institutions in responsible adoption aligned with public health priorities. "SAHI is not merely a technology strategy but a governance framework, policy compass, and national roadmap for the responsible use of AI in healthcare,” said Nadda. He stated that SAHI will guide India in leveraging AI in a manner that is ethical, transparent, accountable, and people-centric. Nadda also emphasized that SAHI provides a structured framework for collaboration, ensuring that innovation flourishes while public interest remains paramount. The second initiative, BODH, was developed by the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in collaboration with the National Health Authority. It is a privacy-preserving benchmarking platform that enables rigorous evaluation of AI models using diverse, real-world health data without sharing underlying datasets. As a digital public good under the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission, it is designed to strengthen trust, transparency, and quality assurance in Health AI deployment. "The collaboration between Government and academia has led to the development of BODH -- the Benchmarking Open Data Platform for Health AI -- which provides a structured mechanism for testing and validating AI solutions before deployment at scale,” said Nadda. Nadda reiterated that AI solutions must be rigorously evaluated for performance, reliability, and real-world readiness. Together, SAHI and BODH represent India’s commitment to building a trustworthy, inclusive, and globally competitive health AI ecosystem grounded in innovation, responsibility, and public trust. AI An Indispensable Enabler to Viksit BharatEarlier, delivering the keynote address at a session themed “Innovation to Impact: AI as a Public Health Game-Changer”, at the Summit, Anupriya Patel, Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare, highlighted AI as an "All-Inclusive Intelligence". She also emphasized AI's potential in addressing "health inequities across the country". Patel called technology -- particularly AI "an indispensable enabler" in India's race towards the vision of a Viksit Bharat by 2047. She highlighted the potential role of AI on India’s vast and diverse population, the rural–urban divide, and the dual burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases, which present unique challenges.  She also noted that AI has been integrated across the entire continuum of healthcare -- from disease surveillance and prevention to diagnosis and treatment.