The rise of AI ushers in the next enormous leap in technology, with India in the pilot seat for this innovation. Already, the country benefits from the inflow of engineers, data scientists, and other IT professionals, putting it in the lead. However, there is the challenge of fully leveraging this burgeoning talent—the issue of brain drain.
The Indian diaspora makes up an estimated 15 percent of the global AI talent. Unfortunately, the AI expertise is largely employed abroad, and the divide between the creation of talent and the accrual of benefits to the country aggravates.
The pivot of achieving India’s AI goals, as Rajat Khare, a global investor and founder of Boundary Holding, an investment firm based in Luxembourg that focuses on deep technology, puts, is reversing the mass talent migration. And there is no better time than now for India to cultivate its own talent ecosystem.
The Rise of AI Development in India
India is not a novice in this matter. The country has already made significant strides in its digital infrastructure, which is crucial for AI development, along with the support of government initiatives. However, the country’s approach to AI is not to attempt to mimic the Western countries.
The goal is to build solutions tailored to the country’s context. With 22 scheduled languages and numerous dialects, India holds a unique advantage in developing multilingual AI tools, which is an area neglected by global tech. This multilingual capability position may enable India to develop transformative and inclusive AI solutions.
Why Have We Never Solved The Brain Gain Problem?
For all the achievements India has secured, the country still struggles to maintain its professionals. The so-called brain drain leads to the migration of skilled workers to Western nations. Adequate research facilities, elite global research networks and institutions, equitable remuneration, and beyond offers serve as a magnet.
In advanced AI research, the specific piece of public funding that is needed is not available. Collaborations with the private sector tend to be missing in higher education institutions. This lack of partnership prevents the ecosystems from aiding innovative thinking.
On the other side of the globe, AI research institutions and multinational companies functionally offer greatly superior pay and working environments that Indian companies cannot match.
As Rajat Khare notes, the issue of the AI ecosystem’s lack of coordination is the most pressing one. In my understanding, the workforce in information technology in India is a region’s best asset, and its continuous emigration is disadvantageous in the distant future.
As India elaborates her software services and the information technology infrastructure in the world, she is in dire need of talent, which means as he explains, not only must India nurture talent in the world level but also, in order to compete with other countries, she must put in place stronger policies in retaining and rewarding the talent.
Constructing the Foundation for AI Innovation
For India to take center stage in AI in the world, a number of the right actions need to be taken. Officials from the government, principals from schools alongside investors from the private sector all bear key responsibilities. Some of the most important immediate actions that need to be taken include:
- Expanding focus on AI research: Create more AI centers of excellence across the country, focusing on tier-2 cities.
- Making retention enticing: Construct retention-focused projects like fellowships and doctoral programs, and retain researchers by offering pay packages higher than those abroad.
- Supporting startups: Help direct funding to deep-tech startups that can generate scalable AI solutions to global and local problems.
- Expanding global relationships: Foster partnerships between overseas-Indian-origin scholars and local institutions, even if the collaborations are remote or hybrid.
- Showcasing expertise: The Global AI Summit, planned for 2026, serves to increase public awareness of the country as a thought-leader.
Rajat Khare explains that India’s gross domestic product is expected to reach $10 trillion within the next few years. This trajectory allows India to participate in globally competitive projects, which further motivates domestic participation from the country’s otherwise brain-drained engineers.
India’s Mediterranean Edge
The defining feature of AI technology in India is, without a doubt, the diverse range of languages the country is home to. Developing AI for regional and national languages such as English, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, and Sanskrit, is far beyond simply enabling communication. It may be best described as technology that grasps the essence of the culture.
They hold immense value because they represent AI developed to aid the rural population, micro and small enterprises, and government programs, providing them with digital access hitherto unavailable from any global provider. Understanding inclusion and the culture of the people, India is, perhaps, the only country that will fundamentally alter the impact of AI in everyday life.
In this context, AI becomes a development tool, not merely a commercial one, that can level the playing field in access to technology and empower the people.
The Road Ahead
India is no longer simply a reservoir of skilled labor for foreign technology companies. It is in line to become an AI superpower. Yet, everything depends on whether it will be able to keep its thinkers, innovators, and builders.
The implications of the brain drain discussed earlier can now be seen as an opportunity cost of the standing policy. Through focused spend on research, scaling innovation incentives, and creating deeper collaboration models, India can not only contribute to but lead AI on the world stage.
India’s AI talent is growing exponentially. It is good to see the government attempting to access this, as Rajat Khare notes, but nurturing and retaining top talent will determine if India competes for global AI leadership or remains a distant follower.
FAQ
Q1. What does Rajat Khare identify as important for AI leadership in India?
Rajat draws attention to the fact that India has a massive talent pool of technical and IT experts, an advanced digital infrastructure, and the unique opportunity to design AI systems in multiple languages. Achieving this will require the ability to keep their talented people within the country.
Q2. How can India retain its AI talent?
The offering of competitive pay packages, the strengthening of collaboration between educational institutions and industries, and the issuing of grants for researchers and startups are effective ways to curb the brain drain of AI talent.
Q3. What makes India’s approach to AI unique?
Unlike India, other Western countries focus only on English and a few other major languages, whereas India puts a special emphasis on the development of AI systems in many languages and on culturally sensitive systems to serve all its regions, advancing the reduction of the digital divide.
