India Needs Strong Deeptech Foundation To Fuel Startups Growth: Amitabh Kant

SUMMARY

Former NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant believes that India’s advancement not only depends in the hands of corporates but also on the innovation driven by young startups

Kant said it is essential for India to have a strong foundation in deeptech, including AI, mobility, battery storage and green hydrogen, as these sectors provide a huge market opportunity to startups

The G20 Sherpa further said that India has to maintain its sovereignty in technology and also called for the need to have good corporate governance

Former NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant believes that India’s advancement not only depends in the hands of corporates but also on the innovation driven by young startups.

Speaking at the ongoing Startup Mahakumbh, Kant said it is essential for India to have a strong foundation in deeptech, including artificial intelligence, mobility, battery storage and green hydrogen, as these sectors provide a huge market opportunity to startups.

The G20 Sherpa further said that India has to maintain its sovereignty in technology. “We must build an end-to-end AI ecosystem and not just the application layer.”

“Startups must get into the areas of AI, machine learning, blockchain and big data as disruption in these areas will be very critical. The future lies in India becoming a champion in deeptech,” he added.

Kant also called for the need to have good corporate governance, while backing the various initiatives launched by the government to boost growth of emerging startups in the country.

“If the governments have to be kept at arm’s length, self-regulation will have to be critical and for that there should be ethical governance, good audits and better financial management,” he said.

Kant’s comments come at a time when the government has pulled out all stops to spur the AI adoption in the country and ramp up the development of AI-centric offerings.

Last month, the government launched AIKosha, IndiaAI Compute Portal, an accelerator programme to incubate homegrown AI startups, and other offerings to foster innovation. Besides, the government is also working on acquiring 18,000 graphic processing units (GPUs) to offer AI computing to startups, researchers, students and academicians.

Meanwhile, the growing demand for business and customer-centric use cases has also spawned the rise of AI startups in the country. India is home to more than 200 GenAI startups that raised more than $1.2 Bn in funding between 2020 and 2024.

Yesterday, electronics and information technology ministry (MeitY) additional secretary Abhishek Singh reportedly said that the Centre is also planning to finalise the “first set” of proposals for building indigenous foundational AI models in the next two weeks.

Overall, the Indian AI ecosystem is projected to become a $17 Bn market opportunity by 2030.