india-s-inclusive-strategy-to-lead-global-ai-race

Union Minister for Information Technology, Ashwini Vaishnaw, has detailed India's comprehensive strategy to dominate the global artificial intelligence landscape, emphasising a shift from big-tech-controlled resources to a public-private partnership model. The minister was speaking at the World Economic Forum panel on the "Role of AI in Economic Growth and Global Influence.”

 

India successfully managed to establish a public-private partnership with 38,000 GPUs as a common compute facility, accessible to students, researchers, and startups at roughly one-third the global cost, the minister informed, while he called for a "techno-legal" approach rather than relying solely on standalone legislation.

 

In Vaishnaw’s opinion, the modern technology’s complexities need stronger technical tools to address bias and deepfakes.

 

“India is developing technologies to mitigate bias, enable reliable deepfake detection, and ensure proper 'unlearning' before AI models are deployed,” he added.

 

The minister then debunked the myth that all AI progress requires expensive hardware, noting that "nearly 95 per cent of AI work can be done using the 20-50 billion parameter models."

 

These smaller, efficient models can run on widely available CPUs, effectively reducing India's dependency on specific foreign suppliers and minimising the geopolitical risks associated with the global chip supply chain, he cited.

 

India's vision for democratising AI extends beyond hardware to include a massive investment in human capital.

 

The government is currently overseeing the training of 10 million people in AI skills, aiming to steer the domestic IT industry toward providing scalable AI services for the global market.

 

The Minister concluded by reiterating that India's approach is fundamentally inclusive, ensuring that the benefits of the AI revolution reach the bottom of the pyramid. This systematic strategy combines affordable infrastructure, a unique regulatory framework, and a focus on efficient model deployment to cement India's status as a top-tier global AI leader.