India Rising: The AI Bus That We Must Not Miss

Late October visit of the Nvidia founder and his chats with The Economic Times and Mukesh Ambani were an eye opener. It is heartening to learn about the awesome power India already has and the immense possibilities of this animal called AI ‒ irrespective of the chances of it becoming catastrophic in the hands of criminals ‒ is a tiger we simply have to ride! We have indeed missed several buses in the past, including the semi-conductors one. Our recent boarding ‒ perhaps 10 or 15 years too late ‒ and the frenetic pace at which the government and industry are working at it might still save the situation. No way, are we going to miss this latest one ‒ AI.

Nvidia Founder and CEO Jensen Huang’s assertion that “All ingredients are already here in India to lead the AI revolution” must not be ignored. For the last two decades, we have indeed been world leaders in offshore software development; our tech companies have been the ‘back office’ of the largest corporations and banks and fintech companies globally. Companies like TCS, Infosys, HCL Tech, Wipro, Tech Mahindra and Cognizant have been providing consultancy to most Fortune 500 global giants and are already among the most valuable publicly listed companies in India. Then there are our GCCs (Global Capability Centres) ‒ over 1,700 at last count, nearly 17 per cent of all such centres worldwide, employing close to two million people and generating revenues of USD 65 billion ‒ an envious eco system!

Why is the whole world setting up GCCs in India? Clearly they find bright minds here and, presumably, at a lower cost. Of late large Indian conglomerates like Reliance, Adani, Dry Reddy’s Laboratories and others have also set up their centres locally. Call them ‘technology centres, Innovation or R&D Labs or Centres of Excellence, they all serve the same objective. Companies growing rapidly and at different locations are able to boost their technology capabilities from the centralised work at GCCs and avoid duplication of efforts at multiple locations.

Huang is clearly interested in working jointly with Indian companies as he made a proposal straight to the Prime Minister and also had this interesting chat with Ambani during which our man told him about Jio’s immense data capabilities. Nvidia has seen perhaps the fastest ever climb in valuation, becoming one of the top three with Apple and Microsoft. At USD 3.5 trillion, it even became the largest briefly, dethroning Apple. His statements like “India holds all the chips for a bigger play” and “Indian IT will become an industry of cost reduction and innovation; will transform from an industry of labor to an industry of invention” may be with the objective of wooing our tech biggies and yet bolsters our confidence and make us feel that ‘we can do it’. He rightly praised our amazing digital eco system and urges us to move from being the ‘back office’ to vying for the ‘front office’.

He dismisses the fear that AI can replace humans and could one day become more intelligent than them.

Going by the comments of eminent personalities present at ‘ET Conversations’ – where Jensen was on stage and literally mesmerised everyone – I am quite sure India is going to embrace AI and do so with great enthusiasm and zeal. Siva Kumar Sundaram, CEO-Publishing, Bennet Coleman, elegantly summed up the event when he quoted science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”. Huang and Nvidia seem to have truly raised the bar on the AI and semiconductor industry.

Unlike Huang, Geoffrey Hinton, formerly of Google – and referred to by many as the ‘grandfather of AI – emphatically believes that AI could one day become more intelligent than human beings. That is a scary scenario and yet, with so much happening in the field worldwide, we can’t sit back. Huang’s assertion could well be a bit of ‘sales talk’, even so we have to move on and do so very quickly simply because India has everything that it needs.