Nandan Nilekani, co-founder of Infosys and chairman of the High-Powered Task Force on Examination Reforms for NTA, on Tuesday declared that India is poised to lead the world not in building artificial intelligence from scratch, but in diffusing and delivering it to people at massive scale. Speaking at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in New Delhi, Nilekani offered a pointed counter-narrative to prevailing AI pessimism surrounding established technology firms.

AI Is Not a Winner-Take-All Game

Nilekani pushed back against the notion that a handful of large language model creators will dominate the AI era. 'Everyone is saying AI is GPT, but no one can control GPTs,' he said, adding that the technology cannot be bottled. He argued that a surge in chip availability will ensure a large number of players can compete, making AI fundamentally different from previous technology waves where network effects entrenched a single dominant platform.

'You cannot bottle this technology, a lot more chips will come and this is not a winner take all technology,' Nilekani said, signalling that the decentralised nature of AI deployment opens the door for countries like India to carve out a decisive role in how the technology reaches ordinary citizens.

India's Scale-Tech Experience as a Competitive Edge

Nilekani argued that India's track record of building large-scale digital public infrastructure — from Aadhaar to UPI — gives it a structural advantage in the AI era. 'Our experience on build out large-scale technologies will help in AI as well,' he said. This framing positions India not as a consumer of AI tools built elsewhere, but as an architect of AI delivery systems suited to populations in the billions.

On the outlook for IT services companies, Nilekani was unambiguous: 'Requirement for companies like Infosys is increasing and more work is going to come our way.' He dismissed bearish forecasts about the sector's relevance in an AI-first world as 'disaster marketing,' suggesting that enterprise AI adoption will generate, not destroy, demand for large-scale technology integrators.

PM Modi's Address: AI for Humanity, Affordability as Foundation

Earlier at the same forum, Prime Minister Narendra Modi framed India's digital and AI journey as a civilisational choice. 'India has chosen the path of empowering humanity,' he said, pointing to the country's decision to supply vaccines to more than 100 countries as evidence of a consistent philosophy of shared benefit.

Modi highlighted the AI Impact Summit hosted by India a few months ago — an event he noted had drawn praise from Bloomberg — as a marker of the country's seriousness about responsible AI. He said discussions at the summit ranged from AI's potential for human welfare to its applications for animal benefit, illustrating an unusually broad conception of the technology's scope.

The Prime Minister also pointed to affordable mobile data as the bedrock of India's digital inclusion story. 'After 2014, when a new government was formed in India and we got the opportunity to serve, India focused on making mobile data affordable. As a result, today, a student in a small town can access digital learning. A small shopkeeper in a village can reach new customers. A young person can enrol in new online courses,' he said.

What This Signals for India's AI Strategy

Together, the remarks from Nilekani and Modi sketch a coherent — if still aspirational — vision: India as the country that solves the last-mile delivery problem for AI, just as it did for payments and identity. The emphasis on diffusion over creation reflects a pragmatic read of where India's comparative advantage lies. Notably, this aligns with the broader Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) doctrine that Indian policymakers have championed at forums including the G20.

Whether that vision translates into concrete policy frameworks, regulatory clarity, and investment in compute infrastructure will determine if India's AI ambitions move beyond conference rhetoric into measurable outcomes.