Tata Son's N Chandrasekaran Bats For Sovereign AI

Tata Sons Chairman Bats For Sovereign AI, Warns Of ‘Digital Colonialism’

SUMMARY

N Chandrasekaran said that if India does not develop independent models, consumers will end up using AI engines that do not understand India

He also stressed upon using independent infrastructure such computing capabilities, research and development to also safeguard data

Centre's IndiaAI Mission is focussed on developing domestic large language models (LLMs) which has lay out of INR 10,037 Cr

Warning against potential “digital colonisation”, Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran reportedly said that it is “imperative” for India to develop sovereign artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities.

“If we don’t develop sovereign AI capabilities, we have a major risk of having all our activities, languages and cultures being processed by AI engines that don’t understand India. So it will take it to a different place, a kind of digital colonialism that we should avoid. It’s an imperative (to focus on AI),” Chandrasekaran said as per news agency PTI.

Speaking at the Mumbai Tech Week 2025, Chandarsekaran also noted that building sovereign AI capabilities would mean being a “creator” and not a “consumer”.

Noting that it is crucial for India to lead the AI space, the Tata Sons executive added that countries spearheading the AI boom will also be leaders in the “future ways” of thinking.

“The countries that will lead AI will not only export AI, but they will be leaders in the future ways of thinking, and they will export that around the world. It’s so important that India gets it right,” he said.

Chandrasekaran also stressed upon using independent infrastructure such as computing capabilities and research and development to safeguard data. He hailed the Centre’s IndiaAI Mission which aims to make the country an AI hub and build an indigenous AI foundational model.

The comments come at a time when the Centre has pushed the pedal on both AI governance and building local AI tools. In January, the IndiaAI Mission floated a proposal to build a homegrown AI foundational model.

In February, it was reported that the government has received at least 67 proposals for building the AI foundational model, including applications from local AI startups such as Sarvam AI, CoRover and Ola’s Krutrim.

Earlier this month, IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that the country is also looking to build small language models (SLMs) for solving “distinct” India-focussed problems.

To foster its ambition of turning India into an AI hub, the Centre has also sought a supply of 18,693 graphics processing units (GPUs), which are high end chips used in training LLMs on large datasets.