India in 2026 has a major advantage of becoming a global powerhouse in Artificial Intelligence. The country has all the ingredients necessary to become a strong AI competitor. Businesses across India are AI-ready and already using the technology to communicate with customers and also for generating data, with a steep rise in digital payment systems. Also, India has a pool of talent with engineers and developers, researchers and scientists. Also, reports suggest that the Indian government is backing huge funding for AI-related projects, with investments in AI infrastructure, rather than just relying on what private organisations have to offer. Soumitra Dutta, Dean at universities like INSEAD and Cornell back in the day, constantly presses on the importance of countries building their own AI infrastructure so that they do not limit opportunities and use AI systems that are governed by the government of other countries and lose competitive advantage.
Can India find success with AI as it did with digital payments?
India is known for creating an ecosystem of digital payments, which almost every business now uses. It did not rely on private companies for solutions back then and hence, currently, there is no monopoly in the market for international giants like Apple Pay. Drawing inspiration from this success, India can soon start building a solid AI infrastructure and make its space in the global dominance of AI. Soumitra Dutta (Oxford Said Business School's Former Peter Moores Dean and Professor of Management) must feel really proud that his motherland is now giving serious competition to the world in the AI space. And this is not just news, as the Indian government has launched a new initiative - IndiaAI Mission - with investments of more than ten thousand crore rupees made to build a solid AI ecosystem.
Accessibility will play a major role
The reason for digital payments to become a success in India was their ease of accessibility to the larger masses. Something similar must be incorporated with AI. And when it comes to artifical intelligence, it is also important for AI literacy to spread with the same speed as AI, as a freely accessible tool, is spreading from one smartphone user to another.
Also, since India is a multilingual country, the domestic AI infrastructure must take this important factor into consideration, making the innovative technology available across multiple languages spoken in different parts of the country. Only then can India truly call itself a global powerhouse when it successfully manages to make all its citizens adapt to artificial intelligence.
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