NxtGen and Bud Ecosystem have launched M for Coding, an open, sovereign AI coding assistant built to rival Claude Code—offering frontier-grade performance at a fraction of the cost while advancing India’s self-reliant AI goals.
Bengaluru-based Bud Ecosystem and NxtGen, India’s sovereign cloud leader and qualified cloud service provider for the India AI Mission, have jointly launched M for Coding, an AI-driven coding assistant positioned as India’s affordable alternative to Claude Code. Offered under NxtGen’s ‘M’ GenAI platform and powered by Bud, the tool delivers frontier-grade coding performance at a fraction of global pricing.
Aligning with the Digital India and Atmanirbhar Bharat missions, M for Coding aims to reduce dependence on costly foreign AI tools such as Copilot and Claude, while democratising access to advanced generative AI for India’s six million developers across startups, SMEs, academia, and independent ventures. The initiative underscores India’s move towards open, sovereign, and interoperable AI infrastructure.
Performance metrics highlight the tool’s competitiveness with global models. In multi-turn software engineering benchmarks, M for Coding matches or exceeds Claude Opus 4.1 and OpenAI Codex. On SWE-bench Verified, it records a 73.8 score—surpassing Claude Sonnet-4’s 70.4 and approaching Opus 4.1’s 74.5—while outperforming OpenAI GPT-4.1’s 48.6. It also demonstrates strong results on WebArena, Mind2Web, BFCL-v3, and TAU-Bench across retail and airline domains.
“M for Coding demonstrates that homegrown models can offer both performance and affordability,” said Linson Joseph, Chief Strategy Officer, Bud Ecosystem. “By lowering the cost barrier to advanced coding tools, we hope to empower every Indian developer—whether in an enterprise, a startup, an academic lab or working independently—to build, innovate and contribute without constraint.”
Unveiled at Cypher25, India’s largest AI Summit & Expo, M for Coding is now available via NxtGen Cloud’s M GenAI platform, marking a new phase in India’s journey toward open, sovereign, and accessible AI development.
