India is often dubbed as the use case capital of the world when it comes to most of the technological advancements. Same is the case with AI. Instead of building something from the ground up, India has been at the forefront of adoption of the technology, which is also not as much as one would expect.
While speaking with AIM about what the company is building, Manoj Gupta, the founder of Plotch.ai, said that with its large user base, India is a big market for applying use cases for AI. “India is going to be a use case capital of AI. We’ll be very big users of AI, and we believe that AI can significantly help in the expansion of the ONDC Network,” he said.
Similar thoughts were shared by Nandan Nilekani when he said India is not in the arms race to build LLMs, and should instead focus on building use cases of AI for reaching every citizen, adding that “Adbhut” India will be the AI use case capital of the world.
“The Indian path in AI is different. We are not in the arms race to build the next LLM, let people with capital, let people who want to pedal chips do all that stuff… We are here to make a difference and our aim is to give this technology in the hands of people,” said Nilekani.
That’s Not Enough
Earlier, the government had allocated INR 10,354 crore for India’s AI mission, which included procurement of 10,000 GPUs for startups and universities. Amitabh Kant also highlighted that India is responsible for generating 20% of the world’s data and holds the second-highest number of GitHub AI projects globally, contributing 19% to the worldwide total.
This reflects India’s active and vibrant participation in AI development on an international scale. This is also in line with the recent report by IDC, unveiled at Intel’s AI for India conference that India’s spending on AI may reach $5.1 billion by 2027. Though the money seems to be pouring in, why are leaders not focusing on building something from the ground up?
Building NVIDIA in India
All is not lost. There are various visionaries in India who are determined to build foundational AI in India, and move beyond just implementing use cases. Speaking at MachineCon 2024, CP Gurnani said that India should move beyond being the use case capital of the world and he believes that something like NVIDIA can be born out of the country.
“I am very convinced that the next NVIDIA would be born in India as the semiconductor industry develops,” said Gurnani, adding that within five to seven years, India would not be relying on someone else.
Not just Gurnani, Ajai Chowdhry, the co-founder of HCL and chairman of National Quantum Mission, also said that the next Apple and NVIDIA must come from India and he is after that dream of building India as a product nation. “Today, India has the positing in the world where we can start to create our own brands,” said Chowdhry.
When Narayana Murthy said that India is only good at copying ideas from the West and applying them here, it was not well received by a lot of people, though it had some truth in it. When speaking with AIM, several AI startups said that it is essential to build foundational models in India, while some said that implementing open source models is good enough for India.
The Truth – India Needs to Build AI on its Own
To take Bhavish Aggarwal, the founder of Ola and Krutrim’s point in case, “We need to grow beyond just being the AI ‘use case’ capital of the world.”
He was talking about how most of the ideas are being copied from the West when it comes to building in India. Krutrim is actively building to move beyond Western technology, to build from the ground up.
Similarly, V Ramgopal Rao, the vice chancellor of BITS Pilani, told AIM, “India’s research spending is insufficient to support innovation in high-tech areas like AI. We rank 56th among 130 countries when it comes % GDP spent on research. We need to spend at least 3x more to catch up with the developed world.”
While building the AI rocket for India, Vivekananda Pani, the CEO of Reverie Language Technologies, gave AIM the perfect analogy. “Scaling the moon is actually a lot of distance. If you walk, it will take 25 lives, versus if you build a rocket today, you will reach it in a month,” said Pani, about why it is necessary to build foundational AI in India.
It is high time Indian companies move beyond building on top of existing AI infrastructure for use cases, and build foundational research in India.
