India's Trust-Based AI Vision: Innovation with Inclusion & Safeguards

Speaking virtually from New Delhi, Principal Scientific Adviser, Ajay Kumar Sood told a CSIS conference that AI governance has become a core element of national economic and strategic policy.

"AI is no longer confined to isolated enterprise use cases," Sood said. "It is embedded across sectors and the digital backbone of economies."

Sood cited rapid growth in global AI adoption, rising investment in generative AI, and increasing energy demands from data centers.

"These trends make clear that AI governance is no longer a niche policy area," he said. "It is a core element of economic strategy, public trust, and sustainable development," he said.

Sood said India's approach focuses on safety, accountability, transparency, and inclusion, while maintaining flexibility to support innovation.

India's AI policy is being implemented through the IndiaAI Mission launched in 2024, he said. The mission includes shared compute access, unified data platforms, indigenous model development, and workforce skilling.

Sood said India has made subsidized high-performance computing available to startups, researchers, and universities, significantly reducing costs compared to global averages.

He said the national AI data platform hosts thousands of datasets and models across multiple sectors, supporting domestic innovation.

India is also investing in AI education and global standard-setting, including participation in international AI standards bodies, he said.

Sood said India recently released a National AI Governance Report outlining a "techno-legal" approach that combines legal oversight with technical solutions.

"This enables innovation at scale while mitigating risks," he said.

Looking ahead to the AI Impact Summit, Sood said India aims to promote a shared global vision in which AI serves as a universal enabler for development.

"The focus will be on democratizing access to core AI resources such as compute, data, and foundational models, so that these resources are not concentrated in a few geographies or companies, and countries can build context-specific solutions for their societies, languages, and public systems," Sood said.

He said the summit will also seek progress on global governance, sustainability, and safety, while ensuring developing countries are active participants rather than passive consumers of AI.

"The measure of success will not be capability alone," Sood said. "It will be whether that capability translates into widely shared public value."

- IANS