Talent, Data, Ambition Must Lead India In Coming AI Revolution: Amitabh Kant

Artificial Intelligence will be commoditised and India must be ready with a talent and data pool, as well as progressive policies and scaled-up digital public infrastructure to excel, Amitabh Kant, ex-CEO of government think-tank NITI Aayog told NDTV at the Ignite India Summit.

Kant built on remarks made at the NDTV World Summit in October 2024 - when he called the advance of AI "inevitable" and said it would bring in "new kinds of jobs" - and said: "We need to be ready for this… it'll be a bigger revolution than we saw through electricity or computers."

"This will be the biggest of all revolutions. We are already seeing in the world conflicts… breakdown of supply chains… but we are also living at a point of time when the world is going to see the biggest rise in productivity because of AI."

"And therefore every single Indian has to get used to it. That'll only happen if schools, colleges, universities all change their curriculum because new jobs will be created only through this."

Pressed on the quality of these jobs and the possibility of certain roles being rendered obsolete, Kant said: "No onset of new technology has ever led to loss of jobs. The same fear, pessimism was raised when electricity came, with the industrial revolution, and when computers came."

India, he said, had a distinct advantage in a field in which no single country could function independently of the others and thereby gain an edge.

"AI models are driven by data (and) 20 per cent of global data comes from India. If you read the latest Stanford AI index, you will realise that, for the first time you have a reverse flow of talent coming into India. And this is because of startups and global capability centres."

But these models, he said, need to be localised, not just in and for India but other countries and languages. "AI will not be fit for purpose if it is not multilingual. AI will not be fit for purpose if it is not low bandwidth. AI will not be fit for purpose if you are not able to do applications which will transform learning outcomes, health outcomes, nutritional standards."

This means India has "huge potential on the application side", he stressed.

To that end, he said, "There are three things India needs to do. First, we are getting into a new era with these new free trade agreements. That is, if we're going to sign 12 FTAs, such as those with Europe and the UK, you are going to see investments coming in from their companies."

"And that's why it is imperative for Indian companies to become globally competitive and drive exports. You need to drive exports both on manufacturing and on services side."

"And Indian companies must have the ambition to penetrate global markets. That ambition must be brought in. If we don't do the FTAs will ensure our businesses lose… That is the most important thing Indian businesses must do… get a global mindset, not merely in manufacturing but also services. That means that sectors like tourism, we need to really market India…"