India, Jan. 26 -- During his visit to India last June, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman declared it "totally hopeless to compete with us on training foundation models," bluntly advising Indian engineers not to try to compete with Silicon Valley. Nandan Nilekani has emphasised focusing on simpler efforts like computing infrastructure and AI cloud services to support long-term progress. NR Narayana Murthy expressed doubt about India's current capability to build a large language model (LLM), stating that the lack of large databases and a structured problem-solving mindset are critical obstacles.

They are all underestimating India's capabilities - as I have seen firsthand.

Consider Tech Mahindra's Project Indus. CP Gurnani, who was the company's CEO,...