India’s approach to AI regulation is pro-innovation: IndiaAI CEO Abhishek Singh

India’s AI strategy is pro-innovation and people-centric, focusing on responsible, ethical, and safe AI applications

New Delhi: India’s approach to AI has been pro-innovation with an aim to build applications that are responsible, safe, and that make a difference to the lives of common people, IndiaAI CEO Abhishek Singh said on Tuesday.

Singh, who is also the Additional Secretary at the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), was speaking during the 5th and final Stakeholder Consultation on the AI Readiness Assessment Methodology (RAM) in India.

---

“India’s approach has been pro-innovation. Our approach has been to have light-touch regulation with the objective of preventing harm… preventing user harm.

“India’s strategy for AI is to build AI in India, make AI work for India and build AI applications that are truly responsible, safe, trustworthy, and that make a difference to the lives of common people,” he said.

Singh highlighted the extensive consultations held across India. In cities like Guwahati, Hyderabad, and Bangalore, to tailor the UNESCO-developed readiness assessment methodology to India’s unique AI ecosystem.

The goal, he said, is to ensure that AI solutions are inclusive, ethical, and meet real needs, especially for healthcare and agriculture at the last mile. “We can have high-end compute to support. We can have language APIs to support. But ultimately we need to build it in such a way that the solutions are fair, solutions are ethical and they meet real needs,” Singh said.

He noted that Indian AI startups are working on foundational models, and AI compute investments are growing, but also cautioned that the focus must shift from discussions and conferences to concrete actions that align the entire ecosystem toward responsible AI deployment.

“We are working to develop tools to detect bias. We are working on tools to detect deep fakes. We are using tools to watermark AI-generated content,” he said.