Editorial: Will India miss the AI bus too?

If India wants to stay in the global AI race, it must address the three missing pieces — talent, data, and research

The history of technological evolution is replete with instances of India consistently missing the innovation bus and later struggling with the catching-up game. With such a track record, one wonders whether the country is going to miss the AI bus, too. Though India is stepping up its artificial intelligence game through the ‘IndiaAI Mission’, involving an investment of Rs 10,371 crore and plans to build a scalable GPU (Graphics Processing Units) ecosystem to support AI innovation, the key question is whether we are moving fast enough in a world where AI is advancing at lightning speed. When ‘DeepSeek’, a Chinese chatbot, took the technology world by storm early this year by developing an AI assistant at a fraction of the cost of American models, the immediate question that arose was why India cannot come up with a similar product and emerge as a leading player in the AI race. The reasons for this are not far to seek: Low R&D spending, limited private sector involvement, a shortage of skilled researchers, poor infrastructure for research, focus on adaptation rather than creation and a lack of entrepreneurial culture. As part of a catching-up game, India unveiled plans to build a domestic version of the Large Language Model (LLM). However, the road ahead is full of hurdles. The challenge for India is not just to play catch-up, but also to grab the opportunity that the production of advanced AI models at low costs presents.

The other question is whether the funding size and scale of ambition are sufficient, given the domination of America and China in the global AI arms race. The creation of a GPU infrastructure, a key component of IndiaAI Mission, is virtually a race against time. There are plans to acquire over 10,000 GPUs for AI research and applications. The US and China have already built vast GPU ecosystems, enabling real-time development and iteration of AI models. For India to catch up, we need not just faster deployment but also open access to this infrastructure for startups, researchers, and enterprises. At present, the United States and China are AI superpowers, locked in a fierce race for faster development and adoption of AI. If India is to realise its ambition of becoming a global leader in AI, it needs to plug the critical gaps in its strategy. According to a research paper published in the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the three missing pieces in India’s AI puzzle are: talent, data, and research. Unless these issues are addressed properly, the country cannot expect to stay in the global AI race. The country needs to attract, nurture, and retain cutting-edge, top-tier AI research talent to ensure that AI innovations for the world emerge from India. Similarly, it must build up digital public data to provide inputs for India-specific AI models and research.

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