Foreign firms making progress in AI and ‘Vishwa Guru’ busy digging graves?
Onkareshwar Pandeya April 2,2025
The world is laying the foundation of a cyber-AI revolution, and India is outsourcing its thinking to foreign firms, looking for pride in temples under mosques and in Aurangzeb’s tomb. Neither did the US-India slogan succeed with AI, nor could India make Artificial Intelligence its “Aai” or Maai. Read the story of India lagging behind in innovation.
When Google’s parent company Alphabet recently bought Israeli cyber security company Wiz for $32 billion, it created a stir in the tech industry around the world. This is not only the biggest tech exit for Israel, but it also makes it clear that the next global revolution is going to happen in cyber security, AI and cloud technology.
But where does India stand?
While the US is debating President Donald Trump’s $52.7 billion CHIPS and Science Act, Europe is discussing the third draft of an AI code of conduct, China is implementing mandatory labeling on AI-created content, Japan is strengthening its AI ethics framework, and Kazakhstan is prioritizing human oversight in AI, India is embroiled in debates over putting tarpaulins on mosques in Sambhal, digging up Aurangzeb’s grave in Maharashtra, and Shinde’s betrayal. Why is India not spending its time building a ChatGPT lab?
There is a lot of discussion about Elon Musk’s Starlink in India. Reliance’s Jio and Mittal’s Airtel have even signed an agreement to bring it to India. While there is a debate going on from security and other points of view about handing over India’s entire internet to it, it is also important to know why India, which has been competing with the world in space technology, and in the words of Prime Minister Modi, even roads are built with space technology (which were uprooted in the last rain), is lagging behind in this field today?
India, which has taken a big leap in innovation, is not able to create technologies like Chat-GPT, OpenAI, Deep-Seek and Grok. Do we not have the money-resources for this or the intellectual capacity? Or no plan, idea, policy, intention and will power.
How much money does it take to stand in the global league of innovation.
Let’s see how much money was spent to build platforms like Google, Facebook, Twitter.
Google (1998) received an initial investment of about $1 million. Today its value is more than $1.5 trillion. Facebook (2004) started with about $500,000. Today its value is more than $900 billion. Twitter, which came in 2006, initially received about $5 million, but in 2022, Elon Musk bought it for $44 billion. LinkedIn, which started in 2003, received an initial investment of about $4.7 million. In 2016, Microsoft bought it for $26.2 billion. This means that India could have spent this much money, but why couldn’t it?
You will say, if Google is already there in the world, then why should we make it? No. Many big countries have their own search engines and digital platforms.
Russia has its own search engine Yandex.
China’s search engine is Baidu. It also has social media WeChat and Weibo.
Yahoo! has a big market in Japan.
The European Union (EU) has Qwant and Ecosia.
The US has Bing and DuckDuckGo along with Google.
Germany’s search engine is Ecosia.
And what does India have? Top in Fake Whatsapp University?
Today, after Chat GPT and OpenAI, DeepSeek and Grok have created a stir in the world of technology as well as in the political-social and intellectual world. A new revolution has come in research and innovation. Grok has destroyed the people who spread fake news in India. It has demolished all the mountains of lies. It has pulled off the mask from the faces of those who spread hatred. And the government, scared of this, is trying to find a way to keep a watch on it.
But the question is, why doesn’t India have such technology of its own? Whereas the CEOs of many big companies in the world are Indians.
Today, all the big tech companies of the world like Microsoft, Google, Adobe, IBM are being run by Indian minds. But why have they not been able to create any OppenAI, NVIDIA or Wiz in India?
Sundar Pichai – Google and Alphabet
Satya Nadella – Microsoft
Arjun Narayan – Adobe
Shantanu Narayan – Adobe.
Nikesh Arora – Palo Alto Networks
Prag Agrawal – Former Twitter
This list is so long… that it seems that America’s Silicon Valley could not have existed without Indians! More than 30% of tech experts in Fortune Global 500 companies are Indians. There is at least one Indian in the C-suite team of every third tech company in Silicon Valley. There is a plethora of Indian engineers in the AI, Cloud, Cybersecurity, and Data sectors.
But why is the effect not seen in India?
Because when the revolution of Artificial Intelligence is taking place in the world, the director of an IIT is counting the benefits of the ‘medicinal properties’ of cow urine. And the youth of India are being pushed into fanaticism and unnecessary controversies from hundreds of years back. There is no job or future in it. And the exodus of Indian talent continues.
The promises of Digital India and Swadeshi of the Modi government are proving to be hollow. A country of 145 crore people could not create an ‘Indian search engine’ like Google. The attempt to create a platform Koo also failed. Small search engines like BharatSearch have not been successful. Efforts like Quikr and Justdial are limited to local search and services.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi loudly shows the dream of making India a developed nation by the year 2047. But his government has no concrete agenda, no policy and no intention. Prime Minister Modi described AI as ‘Aai’ i.e. Maa (mother) in front of the owner of Microsoft. In front of President Trump, PM Modi told that AI means America-India. But in his last visit to America, Trump broke his illusion.
Investment on R&D: India’s slow pace
India spends only 0.64% of its GDP on research and development (R&D), whereas the big countries of the world are investing many times more than this. There is a slogan of “Make in India”, but there is no budget for “Innovate in India”.
China was at par with India in 2000, but today its R&D investment is 35 times that of India. China’s tech industry is worth $5 trillion today. India’s spending has been stuck between 0.6–0.7% for the last 10 years while the world has moved ahead.
DRDO and ISRO are doing well, but the budget is extremely low. According to Data (2022-23), India’s total investment in R&D in the year 2020-21 was $17.2 billion.
54% of this amount ($9.4 billion) goes to four government agencies: Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) (30.7%), Department of Space (18.4%), Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) (12.4%) and Department of Atomic Energy (11.4%).
The US and China are building their economic dominance by innovating in AI, semiconductors, quantum computing and biotech. India is still dependent on cheap labour and export of raw materials.
India in AI and Data Infrastructure
Government spending on AI R&D is very limited (~ ₹2,200 crores).
No concrete legal framework and ethical guidelines on AI yet.
Data centres are being built, but there are energy, security and policy problems.
Innovation at global level is very low.
India is also far behind in terms of patent applications. Out of India’s 58,502 patent applications in 2020-21, only 28,391 were approved. In the same year, 5.30 lakh patents were approved in China, 3.52 lakh in the US, 1.79 lakh in Japan and 1.35 lakh in Korea.
The reason is, delay in patent process, lack of patent examiners. In 2020, India had only 615 patent examiners, compared to 13,704 in China, 8,132 in the US, and 1,666 in Japan.
Research budget in India is low
First of all, the budget for research in India is low and then the process and rules for granting it are complex. The first condition for getting research grants from government institutions is a degree. Even if you have Einstein in mind, if you don’t have a degree then you are ‘ineligible’. If you say ‘I have an idea for a new search engine’, the answer you will get is – ‘First get an IIT degree’. It is a different matter that hardly any Indian CEO of all the big tech companies of the world will be found with PhD, postdoc. Most of the university research has become a ritual of completing the degree. Neither connection with the industry, nor application in the field.
Getting funds for research in India is also challenging. Due to bureaucratic processes, inadequate funding and non-disbursement of funds on time, there is a huge difference between the declared budget and actual expenditure for R&D. Often, all the money allocated for research is not spent because the government wants most of the money to go to government institutions.
The budget is decreasing. In 2010, 6.6% of DRDO’s budget went to R&D, which is set to fall to just 5.1% (proposed) in 2024-25.
Status of higher education and research institutions
India has some prestigious educational institutions, but IITs and IISc perform poorly in global rankings. Their global influence is low due to lack of funding, lab infrastructure and industry collaboration.
Thousands of PhD holders, but how many are useful!
Thousands of students do PhD every year in India, but how many are useful – this is the big question. According to the data of 2022-23, more than 43,000 students are getting PhD degree every year in the country. A large number of these are from social sciences and humanities subjects, while the share of PhD in science, technology and engineering is relatively less. Even among these, only 15-20% researchers are able to do something that has practical use – a large part is spent either in teaching or in completing thesis and degree.
The problem lies in the attitude towards research and the inertia of the system. The lack of research funding in the country, formality based PhD process of universities, and courses disconnected from the industry are making India a centre of degree production, not innovation. The ‘cut-paste’ mentality in research and the increasing trend of paper publications are neither benefiting society nor science.
And now listen to a scary truth
Foreign companies are writing India’s policies! This is a very worrying trend.
An RTI has revealed that companies from the US-UK-Netherlands are making India’s policies! Indian ministries and departments have given contracts worth Rs 500 crore to foreign consultancy firms! Vishwaguru’s India handed over contracts to foreign companies? Slogan Swadeshi and work Videshi? Various ministries, departments and organizations of India have given more than 308 contracts to the Big Four + McKinsey, who are making India’s policies.
The foreign companies that got the contracts are-
PwC – UK
Deloitte – US
EY – UK
KPMG – Netherlands + UK
McKinsey – US.
Their entire control, policies and strategies are made abroad. But sitting in the ministries of our country, the officers of these foreign companies are writing India’s fate, making India’s policies and programs. Will the goal of ‘Developed India 2047’ be achieved by relying on foreign firms?
India has only 22 years to become developed by 2047. And if the situation remains the same, then it will definitely become ‘India made of slogans’, not ‘Developed India’!
(The author is a senior journalist and founder of Commonwealth Thought Leaders Forum.)
