India wants a sovereign AI model. It’s a big goal, and success means stringing together contributions from a range of entities, including Big Tech firms and domestic AI developers of all scales. The ideal version of this plan was meant to lead to plenty of competition—no preordained winners.
The latest development, however, is one that runs against that framework. Sarvam has been tapped to build India’s own large language model (LLM), while firms like Gan AI, Soket AI Labs, and Krutrim—all shortlisted to be part of the process—are still waiting for a call from the government.
Never one to let an opportunity slide, Sarvam is using its newfound status to raise up to $100 million in fresh venture funding, people in India’s AI ecosystem told The Ken.
As a nation, India is making a big bet to bring into existence a sovereign AI model. But it’s off to a rocky and familiar start: there’s one anointed winner while many others are left confused.
Besides, there are questions about whether India’s flagship AI initiative is on the right course. Sarvam is a two-year-old company that’s funded with non-sovereign capital from the likes of Lightspeed, Peak XV, and Khosla Ventures. Does that warp the nature of India’s plan to create a sovereign AI model?
Abhirami explains in this week’s Make India Competitive Again, as read by Snigdha Sharma.
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Wi-fi is a miracle. Not because it lets you go online wherever it’s offered, but because there’s no bureaucratic headache whenever users connect to a network.
This is only possible because of what’s called “unlicensed spectrum” that governments leave open. In India, more is about to be added to it. Call it the first real systemic reform for wi-fi in the country.
The plan is hardly new. It’s rooted in a roadmap developed by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India in 2023. And it’s an outcome that tech companies like Meta, Google, and Microsoft have been lobbying hard for. After all, if the goal is to give hundreds of millions of people in India a fast internet connection wherever they are—at home or at bus stops, in schools or in shops—then licensed mobile networks just can’t do the whole job on their own.
But India’s telcos are not thrilled about this development. They want that space for future 5G expansions.
Sumit Chakraborty explains the conflict in this week’s Make India Competitive Again, as read by Brady Ng.
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There are plenty of reasons for India’s semiconductor companies to win. The US is seeking to dial back its reliance on China’s tech providers, shaking up global supply chains. Since one-fifth of global semiconductor-design talent is located in India, the country should be coming out on top.
But that isn’t how the shakeup is unfolding. Some projects like those of Murugappa Group, Micromax, and Tata Electronics are chugging along, but there are hardly any internationally noteworthy players.
Here’s one absent piece of the puzzle: there isn’t enough capital being directed into India’s semiconductor space. The government’s design-linked incentives, or DLI, are meant to kick-start the sector, but the funds simply aren’t enough to yield the results that would put India squarely on the map.
There are other problems too, from US President Donald Trump’s shenanigans to the fact that Indian firms still need to put in immense effort to convince customers that their chips can be just as good as anyone else’s.
It’s tough running a semiconductor company in India. Shristi Achar explains in the latest edition of Make India Competitive Again, as read by Brady Ng.
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A cursory look at the way India’s workforce has changed in recent years suggests that “women are striding into economic activity”, as Mint reported in mid-May. In fact, by FY24, three in four working women were self-employed. Women generally have a growing share in India’s workforce—a development that public officials persistently tout.
But look closely and you’ll find that the details paint a different picture.
The ministry of labour said last year that India added 80 million jobs in the four years leading up to FY22. The truth is self-employment and agriculture, much of which is unpaid family work, account for a large part of that increase. That hardly translates to formal jobs with real wages. Take inflation into account and things look even worse.
Sure, there are more workers in India’s fields and factories. But simply looking at the number of bodies at work is misleading. The data’s champions ignore the nuance that ends up telling a different story about India’s workforce, but there are professionals who find ways to work with data that is suspect.
Seetharaman G made sense of the situation in the latest edition of Make India Competitive Again, as read by Snigdha Sharma.
The audio edition of The Ken’s Make India Competitive Again newsletter, spearheaded by Seetharaman G. Every Wednesday, our editors and reporters read the latest edition and chronicle what India is doing, will do, and should do—to not just survive but thrive in the chaos unleashed by Donald Trump.
