Research & Development Initiative
for an Agent-First Kumbh Mela
Building and implementing AI-agent systems that connect pilgrims, businesses, startups, and services across the Kumbh ecosystem.
In collaboration with
- 50M+
- people
- 45
- days
- 20+
- languages
The Nashik Simhastha Kumbh Mela is a temporary city - one that appears for a few weeks, houses tens of millions of people, and then disappears. Within it, information, mobility, language, services and coordination must work at unprecedented scale, with none of the permanent infrastructure a city of that size would normally have.
What happens when every person has an intelligent interface to the world around them?
People are becoming AI-capable faster than institutions are becoming AI-ready. KumbhLabs explores what becomes possible when intelligent agents connect people with the services, organizations and infrastructure around them.
- 01Person
- 02Personal Agent
- 03Services & Institutions
- 04Shared Infrastructure
Our progress so far
A look at the milestones as we build decentralized, agentic intelligence for population-scale environments - from field research in Nashik to Simhastha 2027.
A public debut
The launch positioned KumbhLabs at the intersection of agentic AI, civic infrastructure and the largest human gatherings on earth.
- Venue
- New Delhi
- Spotlight
- CM Devendra Fadnavis
Roadmap
From the KumbhDoot to
Agentic Infrastructure at Scale.
Where the work goes next - from the application people use today, to a coordinated agentic ecosystem, to intelligence built for populations.
KumbhDoot
Continue expanding KumbhDoot framework deployments - capabilities, language support, reliability and real-world usage.
Kumbh Ecosystem
Build an agent-powered ecosystem connecting pilgrims, businesses, startups, and services, with Agentic Commerce as a key application.
Agentic Infrastructure at Scale
Extend the systems and learnings developed at Kumbh toward larger populations, institutions, and real-world environments.
Our first deployment
One pilgrim. One AI agent.
KumbhDoot
KumbhDoot is an open AI agent framework built for the Nashik Kumbh Mela. It powers multilingual, voice-first assistance across navigation, services, information and safety.
- Voice-first
- 20+ Indian languages
- Offline-capable
- Personalized
- Privacy-first
The KumbhDoot architecture
We don't ask an AI model to answer everything.
The cheapest, fastest and safest path should answer first.
01
User Query
Everything begins with a person, usually speaking.
02
Semantic Cache
Similar questions have already been answered well.
03
Approved Information
Verified civic, schedule and service data.
04
Intent Routing
Classify what is actually being asked.
05
Domain Agent
Transport, health, safety, services.
06
LLM, only when necessary
Synthesis, personalization, live reasoning.
KumbhDoot uses similarity-first retrieval and approved information as its default path. Generative AI is used only when retrieval is insufficient or when a request genuinely requires synthesis, personalization or live information.
- Lower cost
- Fewer model calls per query
- Lower latency
- Sub-second on the common path
- Grounded answers
- Approved sources by default
- Offline resilience
- Local paths survive dead networks
Our philosophy
AI should empower the person,
not control the system.
Agency
Power should remain with the person the agent serves.
Dignity
AI must work across language, literacy, device and connectivity barriers.
Decentralization
Coordination should not require a single centralized command system.
Continuity
A solution built for a temporary city should solve permanent problems.
Built for the Kumbh.
Designed for everyone.
The Kumbh is a temporary city, but the challenges it exposes are permanent: mobility, access, multilingual communication, fragmented services, emergency response and coordination.
KumbhLabs uses the Kumbh as a real-world environment for developing systems that can eventually operate at population scale.
- 01Kumbh
- 02Kumbh Ecosystem
- 03Agentic Infrastructure at Scale
- 04Population Intelligence
The next generation of AI
will need to work for everyone.
KumbhLabs is building the systems to make that possible, starting in the world's most demanding temporary city.