Creating a country imbued with a scientific culture was Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru's dream, and immediately after independence he prepared a grand design to achieve it. Among the temples of modern India that he designed was a centre of excellence in the medical sciences. Pandit Nehru's vision was to make this center pioneer in medical education and research in Southeast Asia, wholeheartedly supported by then Health Minister, Rajkumari Amrit Kaur.

The health survey and development committee chaired by Sir Joseph Bhore, an Indian Civil Servant in 1946 already recommended the establishment of a national medical Center which would concentrate on meeting the need for highly qualified manpower to look after the nation's expanding health care activities. The dreams of Pandit Nehru and Rajkumari Amrit Kaur and the recommendations of the Bhore Committee converged to create a proposal which found favor with the government of New Zealand. A generous grant from New Zealand under the Colombo Plan made it possible to lay the foundation stone of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in 1952. The AIIMS was finally created in 1956, as an autonomous institution through an Act of Parliament to serve as a nucleus for nurturing excellence in all aspects of health care.

Since then, this institute has delivered the highest quality of medical education and training to undergraduates and postgraduates to bring together in one place educational facilities of the highest order for the training of personnel in all important branches of health sciences. In addition, in patient care, research, and publication, the institute has been ranked among the top institutions in the world for several decades. The institute has several centers of excellences in cancer treatment, Neuro and cardio-vascular sciences, Nursing education, dental sciences, surgical sciences, and geriatric medicines. AIIMS, New Delhi, also manages a 60-bed hospital at the Comprehensive Rural Health Centre in Ballabgarh in Haryana and provides health coverage to about 2.5 lakh people through the Centre for Community Medicine. Also, the institute has set up a state of art National Cancer Center at Jhajjar, Haryana. Today AIIMS, New Delhi is standing high among all medical institutes in India and Asia. The institute has produced several renowned alumni, as Deepak Chopra, Sanduk Ruit, Sanjiv Chopra, Soumya Swaminathan, Vinay Kumar, Arvinder Singh Soin to name a few.