India AI Mission Fuels Startup Boom, Aims to Make Nation Global AI Producer

They believe that India's rapidly evolving Artificial Intelligence (AI) mission reflects a larger national vision to transform the country from a consumer-driven economy into a global producer of knowledge, research, and innovation.

While speaking at the AI Convergence Summit 2026 in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, Nivedan Rathi, Founder of Future & AI, said the India AI Mission aligns strongly with the Prime Minister's long-term vision for the country.

"For decades, India has largely been a consumer in the global economy, importing more than it exports, whether in commodities, technology, or manufactured goods. Even everyday technologies like smartphones are mostly produced outside the country. The new leadership is determined to change that," he said.

"India's rapidly evolving artificial intelligence mission reflects a larger national vision to transform the country from a consumer-driven economy into a global producer of knowledge, research, and innovation," he added.

Rathi underscored the importance of research and knowledge creation in achieving this goal. "We will produce knowledge, thought leadership, and research. Without research, there is no knowledge," he said, adding that India must demonstrate to the world that it has the intellectual capital, institutions, and ecosystem needed for global leadership in AI and advanced technologies.

Rishabh Nag, Founder and CEO of Humanli.ai, said the India AI Mission has been largely designed to help startups become self-reliant, but stressed the need for deeper and broader policy frameworks.

"I would urge the government to create much deeper policies so businesses work towards creating solutions for India, by India and take it to the world," he added.

"By the end of this decade, India would be synonymous with AI. The world is going to be consuming the AI which we build, which we produce, and we ourselves are going to be the biggest consumers of this tech," he said.

Highlighting the role of government-backed infrastructure, Prasad Menon, CEO and President of the CIBA Centre for Incubation and Business Acceleration (ISBA), noted that access to high-end compute resources has dramatically changed the startup landscape.

"As of 2026, thanks to India AI and Compute India, we have access to over 38,000 GPUs," Menon said, crediting direct government investment for making this possible.

He added that startups no longer need to build expensive infrastructure from scratch, as incubators can now provide access to world-class computing resources--something that was unthinkable just a few years ago.

The leaders were speaking at AI Convergence Summit 2026, organised by Chandigarh University, Uttar Pradesh, in collaboration with the Government of Uttar Pradesh.

The AI Convergence Summit 2026 is one of the official pre-runup events and part ofthe Union Government's upcoming India AI Impact Global Summit 2026 that is being held in New Delhi from 19th to 20th February.

- ANI