India, June 11 -- The month was June. The year: 2023. It had already been a little over six months since the world had woken up to the new normal in the realm of AI and ChatGPT. However, June 7 was different. The man behind ChatGPT, OpenAI's CEO Sam Altman, had visited India. We welcomed Altman with open arms, but only to be told that it was "hopeless" to compete with them.

Something ticked off Abhishek Upperwal that day, and this ruffling of his feathers resulted in what India would come to know as SocketAI, a startup that will, in the not-so-distant future, help India make its very own LLM - India's answer to the ChatGPTs of the world.

Cut to January 2025. Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw announced that the country would endeavour to b...