India Needs Clear AI Laws, More Venture Capital: GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke
GitHub CEO Dohmke identifies AI regulation and funding as key challenges for India’s tech sector
GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke on Tuesday provided a high-level analysis of the current challenges facing India. Addressing BW Businessworld’s question, he identified two major pain points: the lack of clear AI regulation and insufficient private capital for startups.
“At the country level, there are two pain points, (first of which) is the lack of regulation in AI, where the government is behind on ratifying clear AI regulation,” said Dohmke.
He stressed the importance of harmonising AI regulations across different regions. Citing examples of the European Union’s AI Act and the Biden administration’s executive orders in the US, Dohmke spoke on the challenges faced by multinational companies with employees across these regions.
“If you look at Infosys, or Microsoft or Mercedes-Benz as an example, they have employees across the US, Europe and India. Is the employee in one country benefiting more from AI productivity gains than the one in the other country because regulation is not there?” he questioned.
Dohmke believes that clear regulations would benefit both the consumers and sellers of AI. Companies like Infosys, which develop AI products, need to assure their customers that they comply with local laws. “Customers are going to want clear regulation, clear laws, because then it’s just the check marks. And you can say, I fulfill the standards for Indian AI regulation, you can buy my product and trust that we are compliant with the law,” he explained, during a media roundtable.
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has repeatedly mentioned its intention to regulate high-risk AI applications with a focus on safeguarding users, potentially through specific regulations outlined in the proposed Digital India Act. However, despite this intention, the implementation of dedicated legislation for AI is still pending.
Insufficient Private Capital For Startups
Another significant issue spotlighted by Dohmke is the lack of private capital for funding new startups and innovative ideas in India. “There’s not enough private capital to fund new startups and ideas. And if you look at the dollar amounts that are spent in Silicon Valley on the West Coast, that’s far higher,” he observed.
He noted that this funding gap puts Indian startups at a disadvantage compared to their American counterparts. “We know that these startups, (possibly) one of a hundred or so, is going to become maybe the next Facebook or even the next Microsoft,” he said.
India’s startup ecosystem has encountered significant funding difficulties in recent years. In 2023, funding dropped to USD 8.4 billion, a sharp decline from USD 24 billion in 2022, which was already 33 per cent less than the funding in 2021.
Dohmke expressed his desire to see more global tech giants emerging from regions outside the US, including India. “I would love to see that here in India and elsewhere, that we have big tech companies everywhere in the world, not just concentrated on the US West Coast.”
Additionally, he called for more corporate funding to support research and education.
India has over 15.4 million developers actively contributing on GitHub, growing at 33 per cent year-over-year (YoY). The company anticipates that India will surpass the US and become the largest developer community on GitHub by the year 2027.
On Monday, GitHub revealed a partnership with Infosys to establish its inaugural GitHub Centre of Excellence (CoE). The initiative is designed to accelerate software development in collaboration with Global System Integrators (GSIs).
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