indian-ai-industry-to-grow-exponentially-by-2027

A new report about the burgeoning growth of the artificial intelligence (AI) industry in India forecasts an unprecedented growth in the next two years. Driven by increased investment in enterprise technology, a flourishing digital ecosystem, and a strong pool of skilled professionals would translate to a growth of over USD 17 billion by 2027, according to Boston Consulting Group’s (BCG) report, titled, ‘India’s AI Leap: BCG Perspective on Emerging Challengers”.

India comprises 16 per cent of the world’s AI talent, being only behind the US, reflecting both its demographic advantage and strong STEM education system. From currently thriving with over 6,00,000 dedicated AI professionals, 700 million internet users, and a surge of AI start-ups including as many as 2,000 launched in the past three years, its size is slated to grow three times its size in just two years, says data by the report. 

“AI is no longer an option but a business necessity. Indian companies are using it to leapfrog traditional growth curves and compete confidently on the global stage,” said Mandeep Kohli, Managing Director and Partner, BCG India.

With a large scale of internet users and extensive smartphone adoption, India generates a massive volume of data that ultimately fuels AI training models. The BCG says this scale of data, combined with open architecture, is enabling the development of population-scale AI solutions across sectors.

India’s public digital infrastructures – such as Aadhaar, UPI, DigiLocker, and the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) – are also providing a robust and scalable base for AI integration across various industries. 

Now that India is set to add 45 new data centres in 2025, it would bring an extra 1,015 MW of capacity to its existing network of 152 centres.
The government’s IndiaAI initiative, with a corpus of over ₹10,000 crore, will establish national AI compute infrastructure, providing access to over 10,000 GPUs for AI model training and research.

“While the hurdle rate for successful deployment is high, the rewards are even higher, and the results speak for themselves. What separates the leaders is not just the tech, but how they manage change, build talent, and embed AI into the fabric of their organisation,” added Kohli.