New Delhi, Feb. 8 -- As countries compete to build ever larger AI models, India is choosing a different path. "We are not.into the race for artificial general intelligence (AGI)," said Abhishek Singh, CEO of the IndiaAI Mission, in an interview with HT, laying out a pragmatic vision for the country's AI strategy ahead of the AI Impact Summit. Globally, all major AI labs like OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Anthropic, Meta AI (FAIR), Microsoft AI, and xAI are racing to build increasingly powerful systems, pouring billions into larger models and computing infrastructure in pursuit of AGI - hypothetical AI systems capable of performing any intellectual task a human can, rather than being limited to specific functions. Instead of chasing trillion-parameter models or headline-grabbing breakthroughs, Singh said India's priority is simpler: to build systems that work at a population scale. The recent Economic Survey argued for smaller, task-specific models that can run on limited hardware and decentralised computer networks, rather than the large, resource-intensive systems being pursued by Big Tech and countries such as the United States and China. Singh, additional secretary at MeitY, echoed this view. "Why not?" he said, "It's not about big or small. Models should not be measured in terms of number of parameters. Models should be measured on what problem. they are solving."...