A tale of bread and chapatis emerges in India's quiet AI revolution

India, the IT centre of the world, is hoping to make its mark as an AI power. And it might well succeed.

- Debarshi Dasgupta

When Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang met India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2023, he went away with a lucid understanding of India's artificial intelligence (AI) ambitions. India, he was told, should not be exporting flour only to import bread.

It was a simple analogy to explain why the country must manufacture AI technologies at home instead of exporting data and becoming dependent on other countries for AI-driven solutions.

It was also a good indication of India's aspiration to build its own AI ecosystem and harness the technology to address its unique developmental needs.

An example of this home-grown AI-led revolution in the making are four Indian start-ups building foundation models based on Indian datasets and needs with support from the government.

Among them is Sarvam AI, which is developing a sovereign AI foundational model that will be fluent in multiple Indian languages and used for digital public services.

India's AI market is expected to triple to US$17 billion (S$21.9 billion) by 2027, making it one of the fastest-growing AI economies globally.

Researchers here are developing AI-led solutions for sectors ranging from agriculture to healthcare. And with the right fillip from the government and greater industry-academia collaboration, India could emerge as one of the AI engines of the world — not just as a service provider but also as a product innovator.

But this opportunity comes with many challenges, not least finding the talent and other scarce resources, especially computing power, to see this ambitious and years-long vision through.

WHY INDIA HAS A HEADSTART

At around 5.5 million workers, India has the largest pool of IT professionals in the world. It is a talent pipeline that keeps growing with millions of STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) graduates entering the economy each year, many of them genuinely interested in AI development.