India’s National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has partnered with NVIDIA, an American semiconductor company, to enhance its AI capabilities within the country’s digital payment systems. This collaboration aims to create a payments-specific AI foundation designed to meet India’s regulatory and data sovereignty needs.
NPCI, which manages retail payments in India, views this initiative as part of its ongoing AI strategy. As part of their joint project, NPCI will leverage NVIDIA’s Nemotron models for model development.
Transition from specialized tools to a foundational AI layer
This collaboration builds on earlier work by NPCI in applied AI. Previously, the organization developed FiMI (Finance Model for India), a customized language model, tailored to address limitations of general-purpose large language models when used in high-scale payment processes. Currently, FiMI powers the UPI Help Assistant, which assists users with grievances related to the Unified Payments Interface.
The next phase will focus on developing a broader foundational AI layer that can serve the entire payment ecosystem. This model is expected to explore architectures like Mixture of Experts (MoE), suitable for high-volume and low-latency environments characteristic of large-scale real-time payment networks. NPCI also plans to incorporate multilingual datasets and optimize agent systems.
Over time, the program is anticipated to support trust frameworks, grievance resolution processes, and operational intelligence across the ecosystem. NPCI intends for this platform to be accessible to banks, fintechs, and other participants in India’s payments infrastructure while ensuring data security, sovereignty, and responsible AI governance.
NPCI’s chief technology officer highlighted that the initiative aims to establish a sovereign, payments-specific AI foundation that enhances trust, resilience, and security. The organization remains committed to fostering responsible innovation through robust governance frameworks and future-ready infrastructure.
Evolving Ecosystem
This announcement is part of NPCI’s broader efforts to develop its ecosystem. Earlier this month, fintech firm ZET obtained NPCI approval to operate as a third-party application provider (TPAP) within the UPI system.
These moves underscore a trend among national payments systems aiming to build AI infrastructure that aligns with domestic regulatory requirements rather than relying on general-purpose commercial models. For an ecosystem like UPI, developing sovereign, domain-specific AI capabilities is crucial for resilience, compliance, and long-term operational control.
