India's Energy Stack: A Global Gift for Solar & AI Revolution

The International Solar Alliance (ISA) aims to export the "India energy stack," which Ashish Khanna described as "India's gift to the world." Speaking to ANI at the sidelines of India AI Summit 2026, the Director General of International Solar Alliance (ISA), noted that the alliance intends to work with at least 10 to 15 countries to ensure nations in Africa and other regions are "not left behind on digital leapfrogging."

Khanna outlined five priorities for a global AI mission: the application of AI products in distributed renewable energy, fostering startup innovation, establishing interoperable standards across countries, ensuring citizen benefits, and securing financing.

The cost of solar and storage is now at least 40 per cent cheaper than fossil fuels in most countries. However, Khanna cautioned that without digitisation, there are limits to how much solar a grid can absorb. Digitisation via smart meters and intelligent grids is essential for poorer countries where "both access and affordability are very key."

"India should make AI for helping the poor," Khanna said, echoing sentiments expressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the summit. He added that the ISA is promoting "digital twin" technology, which maps assets like meters and transformers to monitor system load and rooftop energy flow. This solution is being offered to 125 member countries to support energy decentralisation.

"Out of the 1,000 gigawatts, or one trillion dollars, invested in solar energy over the last two years, 40% was decentralised, appearing on rooftops or within local communities. That figure is only 15% in India, which means as India wants to do a lot more solar because it is cheapest," said Khanna.

As the country moves toward increasing solar capacity to leverage its status as the "cheapest, more affordable" energy source, the share of decentralised renewable energy is expected to rise. This transition requires local distribution companies to adopt foundational digital elements to manage system variability.

"The local distribution company needs to have foundational digital elements to understand what's really happening in its system," Khanna said. He noted that Indian IT startups are currently developing these digital solutions at "10% of the cost of global giants."

Looking ahead, Khanna predicted that the energy sector will mirror the retail revolution seen with platforms like Amazon. "Five years from now, millions of Indians who both have rooftop and battery may want to trade their power when they go on a holiday," he stated. AI systems will be required to manage these millions of transactions and ensure the "revolution where AI and energy come together" remains robust.

Speaking about the US withdrawing from ISA, Khanna stated, "Financially, we were not dependent on US, so financially there's not much impact. There are a lot of good ecosystems in US. What I see is what the world is going to do. The world is going to double the solar and storage in next four years. And why are they doing it? Because it's the cheapest. And therefore, we have to help all our member countries absorb as much solar and storage, which is affordable. It's clean and it helps the growth because countries need energy for essential growth."

- ANI