Prof PB Sharma, Sanskrit Sharma
IN healthcare, AI can augment the reach of an overstretched system, allowing for accurate remote diagnostics, early detection of diseases, and AI-assisted treatment recommendations. This is crucial in a country where doctor-to-patient ratios are alarmingly low, particularly in rural regions. AI can also transform India’s rich tapestry of herbal and medicinal plants into scientifically curated natural medicines and provide an effective system to redefine healthcare.
Similarly, in agriculture AI-based predictive models and decision tools can reduce input costs, increase resilience against climate variability, and enhance profitability for smallholder farmers. What emerges is a pattern: AI is not merely serving the rich and urban. If deployed wisely, it can transform India into one of the healthiest, happiest and prosperous countries.
Economic implications
Furthermore, the economic implications of AI adoption in India are staggering. According to industry estimates, AI could add upwards of $450–500 billion to India’s GDP by 2025, driven by productivity gains, improved decision-making, and new business models. Startups are already capitalising on AI across sectors from fintech to logistics and healthcare to governance.
India’s unique combination of digital public infrastructure (such as Aadhaar, UPI, DigiLocker) and open-source data models creates an enabling environment for AI-based innovation that is both commercially viable and socially impactful. But while the economic upside is enormous, it comes with very serious responsibilities. If unregulated, AI can accelerate job displacement, widen the gap between the digitally connected and the disconnected, and even entrench societal biases if algorithms are not trained on representative datasets.
There is also the risk of surveillance overreach, especially if facial recognition and predictive policing tools are used without transparency and accountability. To mitigate these threats, India must move decisively on several fronts – crafting a robust data protection law, establishing ethics guidelines for AI developers, investing in AI-focused education and research, and ensuring that public sector AI deployments are auditable and explainable.
No foreign technology
Unlike other hitech, AI is not a foreign technology to be imported and applied indiscriminately. For India to gain true advantage, it must develop an AI architecture that reflects its developmental priorities. This includes using AI to monitor environmental degradation, improve disaster preparedness, optimise energy usage, and enhance accessibility. As such, India’s success will hinge not just on adoption, but on local innovation. We need to move beyond being a back-office for AI development and become a thought leader in AI governance, ethics, and applications. Therein lies the real opportunity not just for national advantage, but for global leadership.
India stands at a unique turning point. AI, if pursued with clarity, caution, and ambition, can become the cornerstone of its second independence – freedom from poverty, inequality, and institutional inefficiency. But if ignored or mismanaged, it can deepen divides and compromise democratic values. Advantage India, therefore, is not just about AI capability, it’s about AI responsibility. It’s about training not just machines to learn, but citizens to understand and use responsively. It’s about ensuring that intelligence, artificial or otherwise, serves the collective good, not concentrated power.
