IANS Year Ender 2025: India set to take a big AI leap in 2026 amid govt push

New Delhi, Dec 27 India's artificial intelligence (AI) strategy, based on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of democratising technology, aims to address India-centric challenges and create more opportunities and jobs -- and 2026 is going to a transformative year for the country which has emerged as the world’s third most competitive one in AI.

The country has seen AI talent concentration grow more than threefold since 2016, and now ranks among the top three countries in US-based Stanford University’s Global AI Vibrancy Tool, reflecting its growing strength in AI talent and infrastructure.

Various initiatives of the government support the development of an AI talent pipeline, like ‘IndiaAI FutureSkills,’ which is one of the pillars of the IndiaAI mission, where focus is on developing AI talent and a research pipeline.

The government informed this month that AI may result in job creation in various streams like data science and data curation, and so far, 8.65 lakh candidates have enrolled or trained in various courses, including 3.20 lakh candidates in AI/Big Data Analytics technologies.

The IT Ministry has initiated ‘FutureSkills PRIME,’ a programme for re-skilling/up-skilling of IT manpower for employability in 10 new/emerging technologies, including AI.

Under this programme so far, over 18.56 lakh candidates have signed up on the Future Skills PRIME Portal, out of which, more than 3.37 lakh candidates have completed their course, according to Minister of State for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, Shobha Karandlaje.

As per a recent Nasscom report titled “Advancing India’s AI skills”, the AI talent in India is expected to grow from 6 lakh–6.5 lakh professionals to more than 12.50 lakh professionals by the year 2027, at a 15 per cent compound annual growth rate (CAGR).

India’s growing AI talent base is also reflected in global developer participation. As per global data on GitHub AI projects by geographic distribution, India was the second-largest contributor worldwide in 2024, accounting for 19.9 per cent of all AI projects.

This underscores the depth of India’s AI developer ecosystem. It also validates the Government’s focus on large-scale AI skilling, research and innovation under the IndiaAI Mission, according to Union Minister for Electronics and IT, Ashwini Vaishnaw.

The government is also supporting 500 PhD scholars, 5,000 postgraduates and 8,000 undergraduates for AI-related work.

IndiaAl Data and AI Labs are established in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities through NIELIT to conduct coursework in AI, data curation, annotation, cleaning and applied data science. Moreover, 174 lTIs and Polytechnics across 27 states/UTs have been approved to set up additional IndiaAl Data and AI Labs.

A recent ‘EY 2025 Work Reimagined Survey’ showed that around 62 per cent Indians are using GenAI at work regularly, whereas 90 per cent employers and 86 per cent employees believe that AI impacts productivity positively. Also, 75 per cent employees and 72 per cent employers believe that GenAI enhances decision-making, while 82 per cent employees and 92 per cent employers believe it positively impacts the quality of work.

Notably, the India AI governance guidelines do not allow unrestricted deployment of high-risk AI systems but adopt a risk-based, evidence-led and proportional governance approach.

The guidelines recognise that AI is a major driver of economic growth and social change. At the same time, it can also pose risks to individuals and society. Some of these include bias, discrimination, unfair outcomes, exclusion, and lack of transparency, according to Union Minister of State for Electronics and IT, Jitin Prasada.

In line with Prime Minister Modi's vision, the government is democratising the development and usage of technology. The focus is on using AI for solving real-world problems and ultimately improving lives across various sectors. The government has taken a balanced and pragmatic techno-legal approach towards its regulation. India’s AI strategy has been formed after studying legal frameworks around the world and extensive consultation with stakeholders.

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