In this episode of Interpreting India, Shatakratu Sahu engages with Anirudh Suri, a non-resident scholar at Carnegie India, to discuss the gaps in India’s AI ecosystem. They explore India’s National AI Mission, which prioritizes compute infrastructure and can build focus on talent, data, and research and development (R&D). The conversation highlights why these three elements are crucial to India's AI ambitions and how the country can build a globally competitive AI ecosystem.
Anirudh Suri outlines the current AI landscape, discussing how the U.S. and China dominate the AI space while other nations, including India, strive to carve their own niches. The discussion focuses on India's AI strategy, which has emphasized well on compute resources and the procurement of GPUs. However, Suri argues that India's AI ambitions will remain incomplete unless equal emphasis is placed on talent, data, and R&D.
Key challenges in these areas include the migration of top AI talent, the lack of proprietary data for Indian researchers, and insufficient investment in AI R&D. The conversation also explores potential solutions, such as creating AI research hubs, encouraging data-sharing frameworks, and fostering international partnerships to accelerate AI innovation.
Episode Contributors
Anirudh Suri is a nonresident scholar with Carnegie India. His interests lie at the intersection of technology and geopolitics, climate, and strategic affairs. He is currently exploring how India is carving and cementing its role in the global tech ecosystem and the role climate technology can play in addressing the global climate challenge.
Shatakratu Sahu is a senior research analyst and senior program manager with the Technology and Society program at Carnegie India. His research focuses on issues of emerging technologies and regulation of technologies. His current research interests include digital public infrastructure, artificial intelligence, and platform regulation issues of content moderation and algorithmic accountability.
Additional Readings
The Missing Pieces in India’s AI Puzzle: Talent, Data, and R&D by Anirudh Suri
India’s Advance on AI Regulation by Amlan Mohanty, Shatakratu Sahu
India’s Opportunity at the AI Action Summit by Shatakratu Sahu
India’s Way Ahead on AI – What Should We Look Out For? by Konark Bhandari