AI is once-in-a-multi-generation opportunity for India to lead future technologies: Bhavish Aggarwal

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a once-in-a-multi-generation opportunity for India to take the lead in the world of computing, said Ola Founder Bhavish Aggarwal.

He further emphasised that India—as the producer of nearly 20% of the world's data—should seize the opportunity to lead in creating future technologies and surpass the West, which has defined technological advancements in the modern era.

"If we, as a country, want to become the biggest economy in the world, we have to become the best in the 4-5 tech paradigms—such as AI, data centres, cloud infrastructure, semiconductors—of the future," said Aggarwal, Ola Krutrim founder, speaking at YourStory's first edition of DevSparks 2024, an event for developers.

With AI, anyone can become a developer, and the number of Indian developers should exceed 200 million over the next couple of years, the serial entrepreneur added.

"The developer community in India is very vibrant. After Silicon Valley, the biggest talent pool for semiconductor engineering is in Bengaluru, India, and it's our duty to provide these engineers a platform," he said.

The India AI stack should have a layer of India-trained AI, robust cloud infrastructure, and silicon chips that can process CPU and GPU-type workloads, Aggarwal said when prompted to envision a native AI stack.

For Indians, who've built "steel pillars"—by which he meant iron pillars—outside historical monuments, engineering and computing are an ingrained value, and more people and companies should find ways to leverage that knowledge.

The founder believes that the Indian ancestors who erected iron pillars outside historical landmarks and towering stone temples in an era devoid of machinery demonstrate a profound appreciation and innateness for engineering and computing.

"The Mahabharatha and the Ramayana are the original Indian stack," he said, adding it's the country's destiny to spearhead future technologies.

Krutrim officially launched its chatbot app for Android phones, as well as its cloud infrastructure product at DevSparks 2024 on Saturday.

(Disclaimer: Shradha Sharma, Founder and CEO of YourStory, is an independent director at Ola Electric.)