AI researcher salary in India

The median posted base pay for AI research jobs in India is $219K a year, from 1,508 open jobs at 477 companies. The middle half of the jobs is from $185K to $271K. One job in ten has posted pay above $340K.

Data of Nov 11, 2026. This is posted base pay, not total pay. It does not include stock or a bonus.

Median posted base pay: $219K
Middle half of the jobs: $185K to $271K
10th to 90th percentile: $162K to $340K
Open jobs with posted pay: 1,508
Companies: 477

AI researcher pay by level in India

Posted base pay for AI research jobs in India, by the level in the job title. A level needs 20 or more jobs with posted pay.

Entry level27 jobs$190K$144K to $216K
Level not stated1,018 jobs$216K$180K to $275K
Senior263 jobs$213K$197K to $247K
Staff94 jobs$255K$220K to $292K
Principal66 jobs$241K$225K to $271K
Director+26 jobs$279K$214K to $323K

Each band goes from the 10th to the 90th percentile. The darker part is the middle half of the jobs. The line is the median. This is posted base pay, not total pay.

Pay bands by level, research. Posted base pay in US dollars for each year.
Level	10th	25th	Median	75th	90th	Jobs with pay
Entry level	$92K	$144K	$190K	$216K	$216K	27
Level not stated	$161K	$180K	$216K	$275K	$353K	1,018
Senior	$170K	$197K	$213K	$247K	$290K	263
Staff	$195K	$220K	$255K	$292K	$339K	94
Principal	$210K	$225K	$241K	$271K	$345K	66
Director+	$180K	$214K	$279K	$323K	$420K	26

Top-paying companies for AI research jobs in India

The companies with the highest median posted base pay for AI research jobs in India. A company name opens its levels in the pay explorer.

1Anthropic$600K44 jobs
2OpenAI$440K35 jobs
3Thinking Machines Lab$413K19 jobs
4Aaru$400K6 jobs
5Datadog$360K5 jobs
6Mercor$350K5 jobs
7Runway$320K5 jobs
8Turing$303K10 jobs
9Institute of Foundation Models$300K10 jobs
10Decagon$300K7 jobs
11Periodic Labs$300K7 jobs
12Percepta$300K5 jobs
13Apollo Research$295K5 jobs
14Scale AI$292K10 jobs
15FAR.AI$288K7 jobs
16Snorkel AI$288K5 jobs
17Cartesia$275K5 jobs
18Applied Intuition$275K10 jobs
19Salesforce$271K5 jobs
20NVIDIA$270K41 jobs

The median posted base pay of each company for AI research jobs in India. We use the middle point of each posted range. A company needs 5 or more jobs with posted pay. This is posted base pay, not total pay.

Open jobs

Other places

Other job types in India

Software engineer salary

How we compute these numbers

We read each job from the job board of the company and check it every day. We use only open jobs that state a yearly pay range in US dollars. One job counts with the middle point of its posted range. The median is the middle value of these amounts: half of the jobs are above it and half are below it.

We do not use a range with a bottom below $15,000, a top above $1,000,000, or a top that is more than four times the bottom. A role page needs 20 or more open jobs with posted pay. In the bar chart, a company needs 5 or more jobs with posted pay.

The numbers are base pay as the company posted it. They are not the pay of a person, and they do not include stock, a bonus or benefits. For the stock and the bonus that people reported, see Reported pay.