What Will It Take for India to Turn Its AI Potential into Global Impact?

AIQ TALKS: Amitabh Kant and Mayank, Founder & CEO, ADROSONIC

India has already demonstrated that it can take complex technology and make it work at population scale. From Aadhaar and UPI to Digital Public Infrastructure, the country has built systems that others now study and adopt. The next question is whether India can do the same with Artificial Intelligence.

In this episode of TOI AIQ Talks, Amitabh Kant, former CEO of NITI Aayog and India’s G20 Sherpa, and Mayank, Founder & CEO, ADROSONIC, discuss where India can build an advantage in AI and what that means for enterprises, technology companies and the workforce.

India’s Advantage Could Be AI Adoption

Kant does not see India’s primary opportunity in competing with the US and China on frontier models. Instead, he points to technology diffusion: taking AI into enterprises, universities and everyday applications at scale.

That creates a significant opportunity for India’s technology services industry. Having already implemented software and digital transformation for global businesses, Indian technology companies can now help enterprises embed AI into workflows, redesign processes and turn models into measurable productivity gains.

This is where AI moves from a technology discussion to an execution challenge.

Build for the Problem, Not the Model

The conversation also questions the economics of the current AI race. Kant argues that India should focus on smaller and specialised models designed for specific sectors and use cases rather than simply pursuing increasingly large models. These can require less computing power while delivering more relevant outcomes across areas such as healthcare, education, agriculture and enterprise applications.

This approach is closely connected to how ADROSONIC approaches enterprise AI and Intelligent Automation: combining AI with data, automation, workflow orchestration and domain expertise to solve defined business problems rather than deploying technology in isolation. Its Intelligent Automation practice is built around moving organisations from process bottlenecks towards scalable, measurable outcomes.

The Talent Equation

AI adoption also depends on who is building and using it. Kant calls for a fundamental shift in education and workforce preparation, while Mayank highlights the need for enterprises to work with universities to develop talent that can apply AI effectively as access to the technology becomes increasingly widespread.

ADROSONIC is putting this industry-academia model into practice through its Digital Innovation Lab at BIT Mesra, where research and execution come together to develop practical, client-focused solutions.

The conversation ultimately points to a distinctly Indian AI opportunity: not simply building the most powerful models, but building the infrastructure, applications, talent and enterprise capability to make AI useful at scale.

About AIQ Talks

AIQ Talks, The Times of India’s thought leadership series, brings together business and industry leaders to examine the impact of AI across sectors. As the AI Knowledge Partner, ADROSONIC contributes to the series through conversations led by Mayank, Founder & CEO.