Indian guests speak on their cellphones exterior the Google stall on the India Cellular Congress in New Delhi on Sept. 27, 2017.
Prakash Singh | AFP | Getty Photographs
Synthetic intelligence firms racing to develop in India should not simply chasing clients — they’re enlisting hundreds of thousands of customers to assist prepare AI fashions for the world.
Google and Perplexity AI are providing their companies free for 12 to 18 months by means of partnerships with native telecom suppliers Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel, whereas OpenAI has made its ChatGPT Go plan free nationwide for one yr.
“India stands on the intersection of youth, digital fluency and fast AI adoption,” mentioned Sharmila Senthilraja, VP and business platform chief at Capgemini India.
Low web prices and a powerful digital basis have enabled shoppers aged 18 to 35 to experiment freely with rising applied sciences, Senthilraja mentioned. Half of India’s web customers report utilizing some type of AI, she added.
India has one of many highest smartphone and web penetration charges on this planet. “With over 700 million web customers and widespread smartphone penetration, India generates huge volumes of knowledge, which is the gas for coaching AI fashions,” a Boston Consulting Group report mentioned in June.
The nation’s AI market is projected to exceed $17 billion by 2027, making it one of many fastest-growing on this planet, BCG added.
AI gamers should not simply constructing a “easy consumer base; it’s a new knowledge and cognition infrastructure, powered by human engagement and skilled at a nationwide scale,” Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief govt officer of US-based Greyhound Analysis.
He added that AI platforms supplied by means of telecom suppliers may even form enterprise habits. “The instruments that your staff experiment with at house right this moment develop into the identical ones they use at work tomorrow,” he mentioned.
India’s AI workforce is predicted to develop from about 650,000 professionals to greater than 1.27 million by 2027, at a compound annual progress charge of 15%, in keeping with 2024 estimates shared by India’s IT and tech business physique NASSCOM.
AI is driving demand for jobs in knowledge science, knowledge curation, AI engineering, and analytics in India. As of August 2025, round 865,000 candidates have enrolled or skilled in varied rising expertise programs, together with 320,000 in AI and Massive Knowledge Analytics.
“India is changing into the bot coaching capital of the world,” Saurabh Mukherjea, founder and chief funding officer of Marcellus Funding Managers, instructed CNBC. He added that the nation can be set to develop into a significant world heart for knowledge cleansing.
