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Sri Lanka Urged to Join India's AI Bandwagon for Tech Race Survival

A report argues that Sri Lanka's best path into the AI race is to partner with its neighbor India, which is emerging as a global AI contender. Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has warned that lagging in AI threatens inclusive and sustainable development goals. India boasts significant advantages, including a young demographic, vast cloud storage, tens of thousands of GPUs, and a thriving startup ecosystem. The analysis concludes that aligning with India's technological momentum is a strategic imperative for Sri Lanka's future.

Key Points: Sri Lanka Must Join India's AI Race, Says Report

  • India is a rising AI star globally
  • Sri Lanka lacks AI infrastructure
  • India has young population and strong digital base
  • GPUs and data centers fuel AI growth
  • Partnership seen as strategic necessity
3 min read

Sri Lanka must jump onto India's bandwagon to join AI race: Report

Report urges Sri Lanka to partner with India in AI development, citing India's young population, digital infrastructure, and global AI competitiveness.

"Sri Lanka has no choice but to jump onto the Indian bandwagon to harness the best results for its citizens - Dr WA Wijewardena"

New Delhi, Feb 23

The only way for Sri Lanka to get into the AI race is to jump onto the bandwagon of a fast mover. Since it is unlikely that Sri Lanka can do so with the two leaders in the AI race -- the US and China -- the choice available is its neighbour to the north, India, the rising star. India has a high strategic edge with AI on many counts, according to an article in the Colombo Telegraph.

"India is moving fast in AI development and, most likely, will become part of a three-member oligopoly along with the US and China that will dominate the world. In this game, Sri Lanka has no choice but to jump onto the Indian bandwagon to harness the best results for its citizens," states the article written by Dr WA Wijewardena.

Sri Lanka's President Anura Kumara Dissanayake highlighted at the AI Summit here last week that countries lagging in the AI race may face even greater vulnerabilities because the new trend will threaten shared aspirations for inclusive, equitable, and sustainable development -- the common goals of the world's nations today.

He also noted that Sri Lanka, like many other emerging economies, is yet to develop its AI infrastructure to harness its full potential as a driver of the economy. What is needed, according to him, is decisive action by these nations to follow a principled, confident, and forward-looking strategy.

The article states that Sri Lanka is specifically vulnerable because it does not have the necessary infrastructure in place to join the AI race. In this game, India which is now branded as a 'rising star' is placed third globally in AI competitiveness and vibrancy by Stanford University's AI Index 2025, while it is ranked midway in the IMF's AI Preparedness Index and Oxford University's Government AI Readiness Index for 2025 . But its ability to effectively challenge the two rising leaders is questionable.

The article points out that joining that India provides a way out for Sri Lanka. Demography-wise, India has a young population of about a two-thirds falling under 35 years. That is a high potential humanware stock. With respect to digital infrastructure, it has an enviable recent catchup.

Its cloud storage capacity is about 100 petabytes or PBs and numerous data centres are equipped with more than 38,000 Graphics Processing Units or GPUs. This is a massive advancement since a single petabyte can store about 500 billion pages of standard text or over 200,000 high-definition movies. GPUs, originally designed for graphics, are today used for heavy computation, video editing, and machine learning.

Due to their ability to handle intensive data tasks, GPUs are critical for training large AI models. On top of these, India is now entrepreneurship-driven with the proliferation of about 200,000 startups. It also has a large 5G subscriber base of more than 400 million users, the article states.

- IANS

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Reader Comments

S
Sarah B
As someone working in tech, the GPU and data center numbers are impressive. But the article rightly questions if we can truly challenge US and China. We need more focus on foundational AI research, not just applications and startups.
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Priya S
It's good to see our neighbours recognising India's potential. Collaboration in AI can boost the entire South Asian region's economy. Hope this leads to more student exchanges and joint research programs in IITs and other institutes.
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Vikram M
While the strategic edge is clear, we must ensure such partnerships are equitable and don't become a form of digital dependency. The benefits should flow to ordinary citizens in both countries, not just corporations.
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Rohit P
400 million 5G users! That's the real game-changer. The data generated is fuel for AI. If Sri Lanka can tap into this ecosystem, they can leapfrog. This is about 'Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam' (the world is one family) in the digital age.
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Karthik V
A respectful criticism: We should temper our excitement. Our ranking in the IMF and Oxford indices is just midway. We have the demographic dividend and infrastructure, but need consistent policy and much higher R&D investment to be a true leader.

We welcome thoughtful discussions from our readers. Please keep comments respectful and on-topic.

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