Editors’ Note
Applications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) could add trillions of dollars to economies globally in the coming years. By 2027, AI adoption is expected to help India achieve its ambitions of becoming a US$26-trillion economy—the world’s third largest.[1] Projections also indicate that up to 2027, India’s AI market could grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 25-35 percent, with generative AI comprising 33 percent of the market share.[2] Indeed, AI is already propelling transformations across a broad spectrum of domains such as health, education, agriculture, and smart cities.
The optimism about India’s AI advances, however, is often tempered by considerations involving its compute capacity, the availability of data and cutting-edge technical skills, the need to balance innovation with regulatory and legal priorities, and the institutional changes required to effect lasting change.
As India works to integrate and leverage AI capabilities for national economic transformation, it must navigate the currents emanating from the world’s centres of AI innovation and regulation. These hubs exert influence and power through resource consolidation, or the extra-territorial scope of their regulations. They also tend to structure the conditions under which India is building its AI capabilities, and provide a context for the country’s efforts to craft its roadmap for AI readiness.
Developing national capabilities in AI depends as much on internal capabilities, institutions, and stakeholder networks as it does on geopolitical conditions and relations between the two global leaders in AI innovation, i.e., the United States and China, combined with the impact of AI legislation emerging from the European Union. At the level of deployment and impact, on the other hand, given a suitably enabling environment for tech innovation, AI solutions could transform the domains of social and economic development, as well as those of security, defence, critical technologies, and space.
A number of AI indexes rank India’s AI capabilities across different parameters, with widely varying results. For instance, an International Monetary Fund index places the country 72nd among 174 nations;[3] a Boston Consulting Group study places it in the top 10 in a group of 73;[4] and the Stanford AI index highlights India’s high rates of skill penetration and GitHub contributions.[5] Most indexes agree that India’s tech workforce and talent are among its key strengths. Yet, they also appear to indicate that more could be done to strengthen other aspects of its national AI ecosystem—such as its infrastructure and regulatory landscape—in order to make it more competitive globally in the AI space.
Understanding India’s AI imperative calls for a holistic and nuanced exploration of geopolitical, developmental, strategic and security issues around its development and deployment.
This compendium seeks to contribute to the discourse. The first section, ‘India in the AI World Order’, contextualises Indian priorities within the emerging global AI order, with respect to partnerships with the United States, China’s rapidly expanding AI prowess, and the EU’s focus on regulating AI. The second section, ‘Building National Competencies’, examines core elements of India’s AI ecosystem, including governance structures, compute, data, and AI skilling efforts. ‘Driving Sectoral Transformations’ then investigates India’s experience in applying AI to four of the high-priority development sectors identified by its National Strategy on AI of 2018. The compendium’s concluding section, ‘Security and Strategy’ reflects on the application of AI to the critical areas of national security, the military, defence, and space.
The volume brings together essays by ORF’s experts on geopolitics and international relations, technology and development, and security and strategy. As India takes its place among the world’s leading AI powers, it is our hope that the insights and knowledge contained in this compendium will inform public policy deliberations and help shape the country’s AI capabilities and governance frameworks.
Read the monograph here.
Anulekha Nandi is Fellow, Centre for Digital Societies, and Centre for Security, Strategy and Technology (CSST), ORF.
Basu Chandola is Associate Fellow, Centre for Digital Societies, ORF.
Anirban Sarma is Director, Centre for Digital Societies, ORF.
Endnotes
[1] Kartik Narayan, “AI Wheels the Nation’s Vision of $26 Trillion Economy By India@100,” IndiaAI, June 7, 2024, https://indiaai.gov.in/article/ai-wheels-the-nation-s-vision-of-26-trillion-economy-by-india-100
[2] Narayan, “AI Wheels the Nation’s Vision of $26 Trillion Economy by India@100”
[3] Zaid Nazir, “IMF Maps 174 Countries' Artificial Intelligence Readiness,” NDTV, July 29, 2024, https://www.ndtv.com/ai/international-monetary-fund-maps-174-countries-artificial-intelligence-readiness-india-is-at-72-5980742
[4] “India Among Top 10 Countries with AI Readiness: Report,” ET CIO.com, November 22, 2024, https://cio.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/artificial-intelligence/india-among-top-10-countries-with-ai-readiness-report/115565534
[5] Stanford HAI, The AI Index Report: Measuring Trends in AI, Stanford University, 2024, https://aiindex.stanford.edu/report/
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