The sphere of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is witnessing a fierce global race that was once witnessed in the space sector. Since November 2022 when OpenAI launched Chatgpt, US has been enjoying its hegemony in the Generative AI domain with new AI chatbots literally leaving the rest of the world awe-struck. The dominance in Generative AI bolstered their confidence to an extent that it crossed the red line in the form of OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman looking down on Indians.
An inquisitive query – can a bunch of Indians with a few million dollars launch their own Generative AI, got a condescending reply from Atlman.
Looking down on Indians and their entrepreneurial outlook, Altman had infamously said, “Look, the way this works is, we’re gonna tell you it’s totally hopeless to compete with us on training foundation models, you shouldn’t try — and it’s your job to try anyway.”
He brazenly ended up saying, “I think it is pretty hopeless.”
A couple of years later, the United States is smelling the coffee. With Nasdaq bleeding for several days, the US must have realised that Sam Altman was wrong. The Generative AI, Large Language Models (LLMs) can be achieved economically and by non-Whites as well, literally a “wake up call” for Westerns as US President Donald Trump aptly put it. However, poetic Justice will be truly fulfilled when India delivers a massive blow to US ego by launching its own world-class Generative AI chatbot one after the other.
Nonetheless, China’s generative AI chatbot, Deepseek, has whipped out trillions of dollars with Nvidia facing the major brunt.
With Deepseek, China has demonstrated that it means business in the AI domain and the AI race on the lines of space race has already entered the next phase. However, India gains to achieve nothing substantive from the geopolitical tussle between the US and China except giving away its consumer market for the two dominant players of the modern cold war. The concern of data privacy and the imprints of CCP on the Chinese Generative AIs will definitely have a consequential bearing on the shadow boxing between Washington and Beijing to gain a larger share of the Indian consumer market.
However, the adoption of Chinese AI models will not be a seamless one and the outcome of the Sino-India border tussle could even drop a curtain all together on Xi’s scheme of things.
Having said that, India can draw optimism from the space race and not merely be the consumer for foreign AI models. If Indian scientists can conquer the space by overcoming what initially appeared as insurmountable challenges in logistics, or budget constraints, Indian Engineers can replicate it in the Generative AI models with a better launch pad. Replicating the space journey is not a far-fetched dream but one thing is for sure, it is going to be a strenuous one. It will require efforts on war footing and not the 996 work life balance policy, lest we fall behind other emerging powers in the likes of EU bloc, Japan, Germany or South Korea.
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So, let’s address the elephant in the room – the status report.
Where does India stand currently in the global AI race?
As of now, Jio-backed Chatsutra, Indian government’s Bhashini, Krutim, Corover.ai etc have already entered the market but none has been at par with US competitors in the likes of OpenAI’s Chatgpt, Google’s Gemini, X’s Grok, Microsoft’s Bing, Dall-E among others.
In India, the average cost per AI computing unit is still very high and it stands at 111.85 rupees per hour. On its part, the Modi government will chip in 40% of the computing costs to help developers.
Following the launch of Deepseek, Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw optimistically said that the country could expect 6 major developers to launch Home-grown AI models by the end of this year.
Addressing the media, the IT Minister apprised the country that the Modi government has given green light to 18 proposals and they will receive requisite support from the government including funding to drive AI solutions in areas like agriculture and climate change.
The government has procured 18,693 graphics processing units (GPUs) in total out of which 10,000 GPUs are ready for immediate use, while the rest will be deployed gradually. And the Modi government is slated to issue a notice to procure more GPUs under the IndiaAI mission.
So basically, India is not just idle consumer and is trying hard to join the group of producers. It is just that the sector is so peculier and sensitive that till all is achieved, nothing is achieved.
However, a past couple of decades have proved that India has grown remarkably successful in its attempt, and that too at a smaller cost, when it pursues.
India is also preparing to host DeepSeek on local servers.
On the policy front, the Modi government’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) officially launched an initiative called the IndiaAI mission in 2018. It was part of the National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence in India, formulated by India’s policy think tank, NITI Aayog. On the budgetary front, the Union Cabinet led by PM Modi had approved over Rs 10000 crore for IndiaAI mission.
New Delhi is aiming to build a computing capacity of over 18,000 GPUs with Homegrown developers E2E Networks Ltd. and Jio in the fray to develop this capacity, using Nvidia’s H100 chips and other advanced processing units.
India is also planning to lay a strong foundation for a vibrant AI ecosystem. For this, the private sector is set to infuse an estimated $30 billion into India’s data centres in the next few years.
Can India secure third place first in AI race, then narrow down the gap? Drawing parallel from the Space race
In the later half of the 20th century, the space sector saw an intense and capital intensive race between the US and USSR. While the USSR kept winning the initial phase hands down, the US eventually had the last laugh. Its state-sponsored space agency NASA is by far the most advanced and leading player in the market. On top of that, the private players, predominantly Elon Musk led Space-X has not just complimented NASA but also taken space research and engineering to the next level with reusable technology a reality.
But with the start of 21st century, players like India made their strides in the global race. With in first quarter of the century, India became the only country to make soft landing on moon’s South Pole. But as they say Rome was not built in a day, India started with Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma’s space flight in USSR spacecraft. Considering that India has made a solid start so far. And as the lead has been taken, the shoot off will be massive it is just a matter of time.
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