TLDR: Pratyush Kumar, co-founder of Sarvam AI, emphasized India’s urgent need to accelerate its progress in the global AI race. Speaking at Fortune India’s 40 Under 40 awards, he advocated for increased ambition and significant investment in research and development (R&D) to ensure India’s competitiveness in this critical technology.
At Fortune India’s 40 Under 40 awards event, during a fireside conversation titled ‘AI: Made in India,’ Pratyush Kumar, co-founder of Sarvam AI, delivered a stark message regarding India’s position in the artificial intelligence landscape. Kumar stressed the imperative for India to make a ‘sincere, wholehearted effort’ to catch up in the AI race, likening its criticality to that of space technology. He voiced concerns about India, as the world’s fourth-largest economy, not taking sufficient ‘bets’ in the AI domain.
Kumar highlighted the significant gap between India’s current AI infrastructure and global leaders. He cited Elon Musk’s generative AI chatbot, Grok, which operates with over 100,000 GPUs, in contrast to Sarvam AI’s 4,000 GPUs, even with some government support. ‘We are very behind, and these are small efforts for a large country with the economic might we have; we should be more ambitious in what we do in R&D,’ Kumar stated, underscoring the need for greater investment.
He further exhorted business leaders present at the event to reinvest a larger fraction of their profits back into R&D. Kumar described R&D as a ‘dart out there’ that might sometimes fail, but criticized the ‘abysmal’ percentage of profits companies are currently allocating to it. He also touched upon the need for Indian consumers of Generative AI to prioritize quality over national origin, suggesting that businesses cannot be built sustainably without adopting the highest quality solutions, implying India should innovate on top of existing models.
Also Read:
- India’s AI Technology Spending Projected to Reach $10.4 Billion by 2028, Driven by Agentic AI Adoption
- India Leads Global Surge in Generative AI Course Enrollments, Reaching 2.6 Million Learners
Kumar’s remarks underscore a critical call to action for both the government and private sector to bolster India’s AI capabilities through enhanced R&D funding and a more ambitious strategic outlook.
