BUSINESS

India belongs to 1st group of AI nations: Ashwini Vaishnaw

Thursday, 22 Jan, 2026
At the application layer, India will probably be the biggest supplier of services to the world. (Photo courtesy: X@AshwiniVaishnaw)

Davos: India clearly belongs to the first group of AI nations as AI architecture comprises five layers — application, model, chip, infrastructure, and energy -- and we are actively working across all five, Union Minister for Electronics and IT, Ashwini Vaishnaw, has said.

Outlining India’s approach to Artificial Intelligence (AI) the minister emphasised large-scale AI diffusion, economic viability, and techno-legal governance, during a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos.

The discussion was moderated by Ian Bremmer (President and Founder, Eurasia Group) and other panellists included Brad Smith (Vice-Chair and President, Microsoft); Kristalina Georgieva (Managing Director, IMF); and Khalid Al-Falih (Minister of Investment, Saudi Arabia).

“At the application layer, India will probably be the biggest supplier of services to the world,” he said, adding that return on investment (ROI) in AI comes from enterprise-level deployment and productivity gains, not from creating very large models alone.

Vaishnaw observed that nearly 95 per cent of AI use cases can be addressed with models in the 20–50 billion parameter range, many of which India already has and is deploying across sectors. Vaishnaw, however, cautioned against equating geopolitical power with ownership of very large AI models.