New Delhi, Jan. 29 -- India's strategy for artificial intelligence (AI) must be sequenced carefully to avoid premature lock-ins or regulatory overreach as the nation is now focusing on the objective to build coordination first, capacity next, and binding policy leverage last, allowing institutions and markets to co-evolve.

The Economic Survey released on 29 January 2026, charted that the first phase should focus on operationalising already announced institutions and aligning incentives to enable experimentation. Policy should enable bottom-up innovation by expanding the reach of the existing shared infrastructure under the IndiaAI Mission.

This includes a government-hosted community-curated code repository and pooled access to public da...