As New Delhi hosted an AI summit in February, Narendra Modi declared his ambition for India to rank among the top three superpowers developing the advanced technology, outlining a vision of homegrown models deployed worldwide that would create millions of “high-quality jobs”.
Among those who have got on board with that goal is Mukesh Ambani, one of India’s most dominant billionaires, who echoed the prime minister’s message with his own heady dose of AI nationalism last week. During Ambani’s much scrutinised annual address to Reliance Industries’ shareholders, he laid out the role his petrochemicals-to-telecoms conglomerate would play as “India’s sovereign AI backbone”.
“India should not be a mere consumer of AI created elsewhere,” Ambani said. “It must become a creator, adopter and global leader in AI.”