Archive · 31 Aug 2026
Vivek Raghavan Named Among TIME’s 100 AI Leaders
Vivek Raghavan is an engineer and technology leader from India.
TIME magazine listed him among the 100 most influential leaders in artificial intelligence.
He helped build Aadhaar, India’s large biometric identification system.
He also worked on ways to use artificial intelligence to improve services and find possible identity fraud.
Raghavan has supported projects involving space technology, courts and translation.
In 2023, he and Pratyush Kumar started Sarvam AI.
The company makes AI tools that understand Indian languages and images.
Its products include a visual-reading tool and a multilingual speech system.
Sarvam AI later received strategic investment from NVIDIA as part of a funding round.
Sarvam AI co-founder Vivek Raghavan was named among TIME magazine’s 100 most influential leaders in artificial intelligence.
Raghavan helped develop Aadhaar’s technology platform and worked as its Chief Biometric Architect from 2010.
An IIT Delhi alumnus, he earned a PhD from Carnegie Mellon University and founded two electronic design automation companies.
He has also contributed to Team Indus, India’s Supreme Court AI committee, Bhashini and AI4Bharat.
Raghavan co-founded Sarvam AI with Pratyush Kumar in 2023; the startup develops AI tools for India’s linguistic diversity.
- Who
- Vivek Raghavan, co-founder of Sarvam AI, was recognized by TIME; Pratyush Kumar is his Sarvam AI co-founder.
- What
- Raghavan was named among TIME magazine’s 100 most influential leaders in artificial intelligence.
- When
- He co-founded Sarvam AI in August 2023; the article does not specify when TIME announced the recognition.
- Where
- The recognition concerns Raghavan’s work in India’s AI ecosystem; Sarvam AI is based in Bengaluru, India.
- Why
- He was recognized for helping build homegrown, Indian-language AI systems rather than relying on U.S. technology giants.
- Recognition
- TIME’s 100 most influential leaders in artificial intelligence
- Current role
- Co-founder of Sarvam AI
- Education
- BTech from IIT Delhi in 1989 and PhD from Carnegie Mellon University in 1993
- Aadhaar work
- Chief Biometric Architect from 2010 and contributor to the platform’s design, implementation and scaling from 2013 to 2022
- Sarvam AI founding
- Founded in August 2023 by Vivek Raghavan and Pratyush Kumar
- Sarvam AI products
- Sarvam Vision and Bulbul V3
- Funding
- NVIDIA joined an approximately $75 million Series B round valuing Sarvam AI at about $1.5 billion