By Joanna Tan · AI in APAC · October 1, 2026

Project Tapestry, the AI Alliance’s global consortium for building open and sovereign AI, is gaining fresh momentum this week, with Vietnam and India among the countries furthest along in proving that nations can train capable AI models while keeping their data and compute firmly under their own control.

The consortium — more than 200 organizations across 29 countries — says it has completed its first technical milestone: coordinated model training across four geographically distributed sites, with no site’s data ever leaving home. Two proofs of concept built on that foundation focused on cultural alignment for Indian and Vietnamese languages, letting each country shape models around its own linguistic and cultural context rather than adapting a one-size-fits-all system built elsewhere.

Vietnam’s track is led by its National Innovation Center alongside FPT Corporation, working toward sovereign AI aligned with national strategy and reflecting Vietnamese language, culture and industry. India’s work runs through BharatGen, the government-backed open-source foundation model initiative anchored by IIT Bombay and the India AI Mission, which joined Tapestry earlier this year; India is set to host a Tapestry workshop in Mumbai on October 15.

“AI built for its languages and cultures preserves agency,” said Indian Consul General Binaya Srikanta Pradhan.

The model Tapestry is testing — collaborative training without a single institution centralizing the underlying data or compute — offers a template other APAC governments are watching closely as they weigh how to build credible national AI capability without having to go it entirely alone.

Source: “Project Tapestry Gains Momentum for Sovereign AI During UN General Assembly Week,” Money Compass, October 1, 2026; AI Alliance press release on India’s BharatGen joining Project Tapestry, June 19, 2026.

Joanna Tan covers AI investment, policy and the business of AI across the region for AIAPAC.ai Insights.