Narendra Modi

Fenghuang Technology News, April 16th, Financial Times published an article stating that India is betting on its tradition of "low-cost innovation" and its vast pool of tech talent to catch up in the global AI race and secure a piece of the pie in this rapidly developing industry.

The government led by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi believes that as the most populous country in the world, India can gain competitiveness in the field of artificial intelligence by developing cost-effective large models trained with local languages in India and building AI applications to solve specific problems.

Abhishek Singh, the official selected by Modi to lead the government's AI project, stated: "If DeepSeek can build models at relatively low costs, we should be able to do the same."

Singh is screening 67 applications from technology startups and research labs aiming to secure funding support for India's indigenous AI models. In January this year, the Indian government issued a call for ideas to promote the development of a local enterprise capable of rivaling China's DeepSeek.

Singh said that the government has made a "strategic decision" to develop indigenous models and is "helping to build the ecosystem" through an artificial intelligence strategy launched last year with a five-year budget of $1.2 billion. The government has provided 10,000 GPUs to researchers and startups in India and plans to provide initial funding for some promising ideas.

However, corporate executives and policymakers believe that if India wants to have a chance to catch up in this field dominated by the United States and China, Indian companies need to increase their investment to fund innovation.

Last week, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal expressed his disappointment at an event for startups in New Delhi, questioning whether India can only produce delivery companies and instant e-commerce companies instead of innovating in deep tech.

Compared to global peers, India's tech giants have announced relatively few major investments in the field of artificial intelligence.

According to data compiled by Tracxn, of the $43 billion invested globally in artificial intelligence in 2024, India secured $179.3 million, while China received $3.3 billion and the United States received $34.2 billion.

A top venture capitalist in Bangalore said that despite much activity and enthusiasm in the field of artificial intelligence in India, he does not see enough original innovation. He said: "Are there 10 worthy investment ideas presented to us every month? I'm afraid not."

Data from the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Index shows that during the period from 2014 to 2022, India lags far behind in the total number of AI patents granted globally - 60% of the patents come from China, 20% from the United States, and India accounts for only 0.22%.

Analysts believe that unlike American and Chinese tech companies that have invested billions of dollars in cutting-edge research, private tech groups in India are overly focused on immediate profits and therefore hesitate to take risks to support innovation.

Anil Arora Surie, a venture capitalist and scholar at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said: "India's IT companies... lack the ambition to transform from service companies into product companies. These companies do not consider their advantage to be innovation." (Author/Chen Junxi)

Source: Phoenix Network

Original: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7493767820476531210/

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