Nandan Nilekani, co-founder of Infosys and head of India's national examination and testing task force, said on Thursday, 6 August 2026 that India is positioned to lead the next phase of the global artificial intelligence revolution — not by chasing chips or large language models, but by building real-world applications at population scale. He was speaking at the NCAER India Policy Forum 2026 in New Delhi.

The Application Layer Argument

Nilekani argued that the centre of gravity in AI is shifting away from infrastructure. “The Western focus on AI is on infrastructure like larger models, more chips, more data centres. But infrastructure eventually gets commoditised. The value shifts to the application layer, and India can become the AI use-case capital of the world,” he said.

This is a significant reframing of India’s AI ambitions. Rather than competing with the United States or China on frontier model development — a race that demands massive capital and compute — Nilekani sees India’s competitive edge in deploying AI across agriculture, healthcare, and education at a scale few other nations can match.

Digital Public Infrastructure as the Foundation

India’s decade-long investment in digital public infrastructure (DPI) — from Aadhaar to UPI — gives it a structural head start, according to Nilekani. He said this existing stack provides a ready foundation for AI deployment across sectors, particularly when combined with Indian-language interfaces and voice-based access that can reach citizens beyond the English-speaking urban tier.

Notably, this positions India’s AI strategy as an extension of its DPI playbook rather than a departure from it — a continuity that could prove decisive in execution.

Startups, Jobs, and the Future of Work

Nilekani highlighted that India has grown from fewer than 10,000 startups a decade ago to approximately 1.5 lakh today. If the ecosystem sustains its current growth rate of around 20 per cent annually, India could cross 10 lakh startups by 2035, he projected.

However, he cautioned that the nature of job creation in the AI era will look fundamentally different. Large organisations with structured processes are, he argued, more exposed to automation. Smaller enterprises are likely to be the primary engines of employment. “We have to rethink how jobs get created. It may not be one company employing a million people, but a million companies employing one person each,” he said.

The Case for Portable Social Security

On labour market reform, Nilekani called for a structural overhaul of how social security is delivered. He said India needs portable benefits — covering pensions, insurance, and healthcare — that travel with workers across employers, gig assignments, and entrepreneurial stints. This comes amid growing recognition that India’s existing social security architecture was designed for a formal, salaried workforce that no longer represents the majority of working Indians.

Nilekani’s Broader Role

The remarks carry added weight given that the government recently appointed Nilekani to lead a high-powered task force on reforming India’s examination and testing systems. His dual role — as a technology architect and a policy principal — makes his AI outlook both a vision statement and, potentially, a blueprint for state action. How quickly India’s policy apparatus translates this application-first framing into funded programmes will be the real test.