India Is in the First League of AI Nations, Not a Second Tier: Ashwini Vaishnaw at Davos

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Electronics and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw strongly rejected the view that India belongs to a second tier of AI nations, saying the country clearly ranks among the global leaders.

Speaking at the panel “AI Power Play, No Referees,” Vaishnaw was responding to comments by IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, who had outlined the IMF’s new AI Preparedness Index. The index categorises countries into those that “make it happen” and those that “watch it happen.” While Georgieva placed the United States, Denmark and Singapore at the top, she said emerging economies like India and Saudi Arabia ranked relatively high due to sustained investments in technology and India’s long-standing focus on IT.

Addressing questions about whether India, often seen as part of a second grouping, would need to align more closely with either the US or China, Vaishnaw pushed back. He said India clearly belongs in the first group because it is building capabilities across all five layers of the AI stack: applications, models, chips, infrastructure and energy.

The government’s five-layer AI architecture is designed to deploy artificial intelligence across sectors such as healthcare, agriculture, education and public services. Vaishnaw said India is set to become one of the world’s largest suppliers of AI-driven services, arguing that returns from AI come primarily from enterprise deployment and productivity gains rather than from building extremely large models.

He said nearly 95% of AI use cases can be addressed using models in the 20 to 50 billion parameter range, many of which India already has and is deploying across sectors. According to Vaishnaw, the government’s focus is on “AI diffusion,” ensuring wide access to AI for students, startups and researchers through subsidised computing.

Under the IndiaAI Mission, the government is developing 12 indigenous AI models, making around 40,000 GPUs available at subsidised rates, expanding data centre capacity, and planning to use nuclear energy to provide stable, round-the-clock power for AI infrastructure.

At another Davos panel titled “Can India Become the Third Largest Economy in the World?”, Vaishnaw said India will become the world’s third largest economy within the next few years, calling it a certainty driven by a decade of transformational change based on public investment, inclusive growth, manufacturing and regulatory simplification.

He said India can sustain growth of 6–8% with stable inflation, supported by welfare schemes, wider access to banking and a sharp reduction in poverty. However, he cautioned that rising debt levels in advanced economies could pose risks to the global economy.

Vaishnaw said the government is pursuing major reforms with cooperation between the Centre and states, including simplifying GST, reforming labour laws, opening the nuclear energy sector to private companies, and removing outdated and complex regulations to improve ease of doing business. He added that India has emerged as a trusted partner in global manufacturing, including semiconductors, and is expanding exports and trade agreements to remain resilient amid global economic uncertainty.

On regulation, Vaishnaw stressed the need for a “techno-legal approach” to address challenges such as deepfakes and bias, calling for technical tools that can reliably detect harmful content and withstand judicial scrutiny.

The Ministry of Electronics and IT last year released draft amendments to the IT Rules, 2021, proposing mandatory labelling of AI-generated content. The draft framework requires AI platforms to embed permanent watermarks or metadata identifiers on synthetic content, with visible labels on at least 10% of images and videos and audio identifiers during the first 10% of playback.

Vaishnaw also said there is now a proposal to host a World Economic Forum-style event in India, describing the idea of an “Autumn Davos” as a sign of growing global recognition of the country.

As India prepares to host the AI Impact Summit next month, Vaishnaw outlined three priorities: measurable productivity gains, broad accessibility for India and the Global South, and safety through regulatory guardrails. The summit is expected to feature global leaders, investment announcements and the rollout of India’s AI models.

He added that India is developing a semiconductor roadmap from 28-nanometre chips to advanced nodes by the early 2030s, is seeing increased momentum in deep-tech startups, and has confirmed large investments in AI infrastructure and clean energy.

On the sidelines of Davos, Vaishnaw met IBM chairman and chief executive Arvind Krishna to discuss collaboration on advanced chip technologies, including 7-nanometre and 2-nanometre chips, and steps to strengthen India’s semiconductor talent pool. He also met Meta’s chief global affairs officer Joel Kaplan, with discussions focused on protecting users from deepfakes and other AI-generated content.