India Should Back Indigenously-Built AI, LLMs Trained On Local Data: Vijay Shekhar Sharma

Fintech major Paytm’s CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma believes that India should champion indigenously-created AI and large language models (LLMs) built on local tech and data. 

“IMO (in my opinion) India should champion AI and LLM models within India on India data and tech, for sure,” tweeted Sharma. 

He made the comment in response to technology analyst Benedict Evans’ tweet that said that the US and European Union (EU) were imposing a ‘crippling’ licence regime on companies building crypto and AI products, respectively. 

“… there’s a funny kind of symmetry in the way that the crypto industry thinks the US is trying to put them out of business so they’re moving to Europe, just as Europe decides to cripple AI,” said Evans. 

Evans added that the licence mandates and heavy paperwork sought by the EU for machine learning companies reminded him of ‘certain kinds of 20th century governments that registered and licensed typewriters and Xeroxes.’

Sharma’s push for locally made AI products trained on Indian data comes at a time when the country is witnessing a raging debate on the scope of AI technologies and their future. In the recent past, big names from the Indian corporate world have given their opinions on the burgeoning technology. 

A case in point was Zoho cofounder Sridhar Vembu who has time and again called for regulating AI. He even went on to claim that AI could put millions of jobs at risk and be the harbinger of chaotic and potentially catastrophic consequences for humanity.

Others such as Infosys cofounder Narayan Murthy believe that AI technologies, such as ChatGPT, cannot beat the human mind. Murthy said he was not too worried about ChatGPT.

On the other hand, the Indian government has also said that it would regulate AI and other emerging technologies to curb harm to its digital citizens. Recently, MoS Rajeev Chandrasekhar downplayed the impact of AI on the job market saying that the possibility of AI becoming intelligent enough to replace jobs was remote at least for the next five to ten years. 

The statement came around the same time OpenAI’s cofounder Sam Altman met Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier this month. During his meeting with PM Modi, Altman discussed topics ranging from opportunities presented by AI to the need for global AI regulations.

The spree of statements come at a time when the AI ecosystem has taken off globally. New AI-based projects and platforms are emerging almost every week, with giants OpenAI and Google strengthening their play in the space and rolling out a slew of services.

The Indian AI space has also been gradually picking up pace. While some companies have leveraged existing LLMs to build products on top of them, others are building new AI generative products from scratch, including the likes of Sonic Chat, Lei, and Rephrase.AI. 

As per a report, the homegrown AI software market was valued at $2.76 Bn at the end of 2020 and was expected to rise to a market size of $7.8 Bn by 2025.