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Basu Chandola and Anirban Sarma, Eds., Democratising AI: Towards Open, Decentralised AI Ecosystems, Observer Research Foundation, February 2026.
Over the past decade, India has demonstrated what inclusive digital transformation can achieve. From driving digital financial inclusion and powering the world’s largest vaccination programme to enabling secure e-commerce and strengthening direct benefit transfers, the country’s digital public infrastructure (DPI) has shown how technology can serve citizens at scale and create public value. The India Stack, built on open standards, interoperability, and public–private collaboration, has become a global reference point for how digital ecosystems can unlock innovation while expanding access.
As India prepares to lead the Artificial Intelligence (AI) revolution, it is committed to building on this legacy. It envisages AI as “a big tool to solve many problems simultaneously”, one that can drive economic growth, strengthen public services, and address social challenges while containing the associated risks.[1] Boosting the accessibility of the technology and ensuring that no single player has a monopoly over it are two critical priorities of the strategy. Similar to the development of DPI, India aims to create a model in which the government invests in platforms, enabling everyone to use the technology to innovate, develop, and deliver products and services in a competitive and collaborative manner.[2]
This approach aims to uphold competition and ensure interoperability, promote the use of open-source technologies, install sufficient guardrails, and enhance transparency, inclusion, and collaboration.[3] Offering AI-as-a-service to its citizens will help accelerate its adoption and foster innovation in this sector. India seeks to create a platform where computing power, high-quality datasets, and a common protocol and framework will be available for all.[4]
The IndiaAI Mission is currently building a comprehensive AI ecosystem that encourages innovation by democratising computing access, enhancing data quality, developing indigenous capabilities, attracting top talent, enabling industry collaboration, providing startup risk capital, ensuring socially impactful projects, and promoting ethical AI.[5] It is guided by the fundamental principles of openness and accessibility across cloud platforms to foundational models to unlock public value and prevent the vendor lock-ins that are common in the AI space.
India firmly believes in this vision of an open and decentralised AI ecosystem. Indeed, democratising AI is a powerful pathway to improving millions of lives and transforming sectors. It is also a force for accelerating global progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).[6]
Through the India AI Impact Summit’s ‘Democratizing AI’ Working Group,[7] India is helping lead the conversation on equitable access to foundational AI resources. The overall objective is to promote inclusivity, strengthen cooperation across the Global South, and ensure that the benefits of AI are shared widely and sustainably around the world.
The notion of democratising AI has multiple dimensions. It speaks not only to who can access and use the tools, but also to who has the resources and skills to build and adapt them, as well as who is included in the processes that will shape its growth trajectory. In essence, democratisation involves widening access to AI use, broadening people’s participation in its development, and embedding inclusivity, accountability, and transparency in AI governance.[8] Democratisation is not merely a technological aspiration but a societal imperative. It is central to building trust in digital systems, advancing equity, and ensuring that the transition to an AI-powered world is grounded in fairness and public value.[9]
This volume draws on the insights from a workshop organised by the Observer Research Foundation in Kolkata in February 2025, on the theme ‘Democratising AI: Towards Open, Decentralised AI Ecosystems’. The chapters are based on the papers presented by leading Indian AI scholars during the workshop; they have been grouped according to four interlinked themes:
This edited volume, like the workshop that inspired it, reflects a shared belief that the promise of AI cannot be fully realised through isolated proprietary systems. Instead, real public value lies in building open, interoperable, and decentralised AI infrastructure. Wide-ranging efforts must be made across all stakeholder pools to retain AI as a public good that is governed transparently and aligned with public interest.
By anchoring these discussions around decentralisation, sectoral impact, responsible governance, and ecosystem-level thinking, this volume represents a comprehensive roadmap for how AI can evolve in a future-ready manner.
Read the monograph here.
[1] Nivash Jeevanandam, “Global IndiaAI Summit - Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw Highlights AI's Transformative Potential and Risks at Global IndiaAI Summit,” IndiaAI, July 3, 2024, https://indiaai.gov.in/article/minister-ashwini-vaishnaw-highlights-ai-s-transformative-potential-and-risks-at-global-indiaai-summit.
[2] Ministry of Electronics and IT, Government of India, https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2030512#.
[3] Leslie D’Monte, “How India Plans to Make AI Accessible for All,” LiveMint, July 5, 2024, https://www.livemint.com/ai/how-india-plans-to-make-ai-accessible-for-all-11720155629511.html.
[4] Rashaad Ather, “India to Create UPI-like Public Platform for AI: IT Minister Ashwini,” StartUpPedia, https://startuppedia.in/trending/trending/india-to-create-upi-like-public-platform-for-ai-it-minister-ashwini-4793706.
[5] “IndiaAI,” https://indiaai.gov.in/.
[6] Narendra Modi, “Opening Address by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi at the AI Action Summit, Paris,” (speech, Paris, February 11, 2025), https://www.mea.gov.in/Speeches-Statements.htm?dtl/39020/Opening_Address_by_Prime_Minister_Shri_Narendra_Modi_at_the_AI_Action_Summit_Paris_February_11_2025v.
[7] “Democratizing AI Resources Working Group,” https://impact.indiaai.gov.in/working-groups/democratizing-ai-resources.
[8] Ta Lin, “’Democratizing AI’ and the Concern of Algorithmic Injustice,” Philosophy and Technology 37 (2024) 103, https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-024-00792-2.
[9] Taylor, R.R., Murphy, J.W., Hoston, W.T. et al., “Democratizing AI in public administration: improving equity through maximum feasible participation,” AI & Soc 40 (2025) 3653–3662 https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-024-02120-w.
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Basu Chandola is an Associate Fellow. His areas of research include competition law, interface of intellectual property rights and competition law, and tech policy. Basu has ...
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Anirban Sarma is Director of the Digital Societies Initiative at the Observer Research Foundation. His research explores issues of technology policy, with a focus on ...
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