Mumbai, March 2 (IANS) With the Modi government’s sound policies playing the role of an enabler for entrepreneurs and innovators to take advantage of the new digital wave, India will be at the forefront of the AI age, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said.
“I am also confident that Mumbai can become India’s tech hub with the incredible investment that is being made in necessary infrastructure, capital, and skill availability,” the Minister further stated in his interaction at the Mumbai Tech Week 2025.
He said that India’s commercial capital has all the ingredients needed to be a major tech hub.
“Had an excellent interaction at the Mumbai Tech Week 2025, where I had the opportunity to speak at length about India’s huge advantage in adopting AI and contributing to its ethical usage,” the Minister posted on X.
India is establishing a leadership position in the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI). The country recorded three billion AI-related app downloads in 2024, which was far ahead of the US’s number of 1.5 billion and China’s 1.3 billion.
According to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, this shows that India is the “use case capital of AI”, which means that the country is not just talking about AI or doing research in AI; it is actually implementing it on a large scale.
At the AI Action Summit in Paris last month, which India co-chaired with France, Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke about how AI is not just a national issue but a global responsibility. It is very important to have an AI which is ethical, inclusive and trustworthy, he emphasised.
In his address, PM Modi noted that the world was at the dawn of the AI age, where this technology was fast writing the code for humanity and re-shaping “our polity, economy, security and society”.
Emphasizing that AI was very different from other technological milestones in human history in terms of impact, he called for collective global efforts to establish governance and standards that uphold shared values, address risks and build trust. He further added that governance was not just about managing risks but also about promoting innovation and deploying it for the global good.
In this regard, he advocated for ensuring access to AI for all, especially the Global South. He called for democratizing technology and its people-centric applications so that achieving the Sustainable Development Goals becomes a reality. Alluding to the success of the India-France sustainability partnership through initiatives such as the International Solar Alliance, the PM stated that it was only natural that the two countries were joining hands to forge an innovation partnership for a smart and responsible future.
The Prime Minister highlighted India’s success in building a Digital Public Infrastructure for its 1.4 billion citizens based on open and accessible technology. Talking about India’s AI Mission, the PM noted that India, considering its diversity, was building its own Large Language Model for AI. He underlined that India was ready to share its experience to ensure that the benefits of AI reach everyone. The Prime Minister also announced that India will be hosting the next AI Summit.
–IANS
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