India Coming Of Age On AI Revolution

India co-hosting the Global AI summit organised by France is a significant moment in multiple ways. In recent years, the US has taken a clear lead in driving the innovation in artificial intelligence (AI) space. Companies like Microsoft, Google, Amazon, IBM, Nvidia, Oracle and several others are pouring billions into AI space for having a fast-mover advantage. Startups like OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI and others have now come up with several successful products in AI & generative AI space. Such drive has again created an atmosphere of tech dominance across the world by the US companies. Against this backdrop, China- world’s second largest economy- is also trying to build its own AI products to challenge such tech dominance of the US companies.

Recently, DeepSeek- an AI startup coming out of China- has taken the world by storm. Developed in a fraction of capital that US companies have invested in building the foundational model, this startup has shown that world that breakthrough innovation is possible at a low cost. In this perspective, both Europe and India are now trying to play the catch-up game. The Global Summit arranged by France with India as co-chair, therefore, holds a lot of significance.

Firstly, Europe understands that it requires own AI models and home-grown startups to keep the region’s interest at first. Given the flip-flops in the US policies towards European region in case of regime change, European leaders are trying to build their independent voices in this critical technology space. As far as India is concerned, despite having the largest AI talent base, the country is yet to come up with any significant innovation in this space. And there are several reasons for such state of affairs. Indian startups don’t have the required capital for pursuing new innovations in the AI space as funding environment has not improved since last few years. Similarly, Indian technology companies like several IT services firms, SaaS startups and others seem to have lacked the drive for spending on AI-related breakthroughs. Despite sitting on piles on cash, Indian IT firms are more focussed on getting return on their investment than spending big on R&D areas. Analysts are of the opinion that Indian IT firms are more focused on getting projects that come up from enterprise AI applications than coming up with their own products.

This mindset is definitely to hurt India in a long-run. In this perspective, India government’s push to drive innovation on AI is a welcome move. For instance, the country is gearing up to build its own Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) in the next three to five years. Similarly, the country is working on its own foundational AI model, which is expected to be ready in next 10 months. India is also planning to roll out 18,000 GPU-based computing facilities in the coming days. This is crucial for reducing India’s reliance on foreign-made chips. Notably, India has the highest AI talent base in the world. Most innovations in the AI field are expected to have some bit of Indian talent’s contribution. Therefore, India should move fast to create a significant stake in world’s AI ecosystem.