Tech leaders bet on AI's India future

Why the world believes in the country's talent pool, infrastructure and 'vibrant' startup ecosystem, reports SHIVANI SHINDE

- SHIVANI SHINDE

Artificial intelligence (AI) is in the headlines in India as three leaders in the technology visit the country: Nvidia's Jensen Huang, Meta's Yann LeCun, and Mustafa Suleyman of Microsoft (who will be here early next month).

Huang, the chipmaker's chief executive officer (CEO), and LeCun, Meta's chief AI scientist, have separately spoken about India's potential in being a leader in the technology.

"India should be at the centre of AI," said Huang at the Nvidia AI Summit in Mumbai last week. India's information technology (IT) industry, renowned for its size and expertise, is capable of moving beyond software outsourcing and becoming an AI innovation hub.

"No one manufactures intelligence at the moment. Before every other country jumps into that, India should jump into that," he said.

The time has come for India to export "intelligence" and not just labour. "You should not export data to import intelligence," he said.

Pivotal role

LeCun stressed on India's expertise in product development. "With its rich talent pool and vibrant tech ecosystem, India is already making significant strides," said LeCun at Meta's Build with AI Summit in Bengaluru.

"As AI continues to evolve, India is poised to play a pivotal role in driving innovation on a global scale."

Meta in July announced Llama 3.1, the largest open-source AI model. Llama 3.1, the firm says, beats GPT-4 and Anthropic Claude 3.5 Sonnet on various parameters. It allows Indian developers, one of the largest in the world, to create AI applications.