Inside India's scramble for AI independence

Historically known as the global back office for the software industry, India has a tech ecosystem that evolved with a services-first mindset. Giants like Infosys and TCS built their success on efficient software delivery, but invention was neither prioritized nor rewarded. Meanwhile, India's R&D spending hovered at just 0.65% of GDP ( 25.4 billion) in 2024, far behind China's 2.68% ( 476.2 billion) and the US's 3.5% ( 962.3 billion). The muscle to invent and commercialize deep tech, from algorithms to chips, was just never built. Isolated pockets of world-class research do exist within government agencies like the DRDO (Defense Research & Development Organization) and ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization), but their breakthroughs rarely spill into civilian or commercial use.