New Delhi: Indian AI startups must adopt a global outlook and build sustainable business models beyond initial government support, said Abhishek Singh, IAS, IndiaAI Mission CEO, Additional Secretary, DG NIC, Ministry of Electronics and IT.
“Initial level of support may come from the government, but that will not sustain them in the long run. Ultimately, they will have to have a business model,” Singh noted, urging founders to think beyond domestic boundaries when training models.
He emphasised that Indian startups need to be competitive at the global level, even as global players like OpenAI and Llama will increasingly have to customise their offerings for India. Singh called this an “evolving marketplace,” adding that the presence of government support should not lead to complacency among local startups.
Highlighting the government’s support for AI infrastructure, Singh revealed that India’s national compute capacity for AI and large language model (LLM) development has surpassed 34,000 GPUs. This follows a recent announcement about procuring 14,000 additional GPUs under the IndiaAI mission, with another 10,000 to 15,000 expected by July 2025.
He also underlined the need for regulatory oversight to ensure AI applications comply with Indian laws, including the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act.
“We are more inclined to promote innovation, but while having enough measures with the use of the existing legal provisions to prevent any harm that may take place,” Singh said.
The IndiaAI Mission has already selected four startups in the first phase from over 500 applications, and more will be onboarded to build a dynamic, innovation-driven ecosystem.
