India, Feb. 22 -- In March 2024, the IndiaAI Mission was launched with an outlay of INR 10,372 Cr to build a domestic AI ecosystem. The timing was ripe, but the ambitions were audacious.

At the time, global leaders such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Mistral, and Meta were already deep into the AI arms race, releasing increasingly powerful models and tools, armed with tens of billions of dollars in investment.

Think OpenAI, which had already raised more than $18 Bn by October 2024, while Anthropic and Mistral had secured multi-billion-dollar backing.

Against this backdrop, India's allocation seems modest. The INR 10,372 Cr ($1.1 Bn) was meant to fund not just model development, but also data infrastructure, GPU access, and research labs...