AI to outpace all past revolutions; India preparing to lead AI era: Ashwini Vaishnaw

Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Saturday described artificial intelligence as the driver of a “fifth industrial revolution,” asserting that its scale and speed of transformation would surpass all previous technological shifts.

Speaking at the ET Now Global Business Summit 2026, Vaishnaw said India was rapidly preparing its industries, students and technology ecosystem to lead in the emerging AI era through a comprehensive, five-layer AI strategy.

Vaishnaw said that after the UK, South Korea and France, India would host the AI Impact Summit, which he described as the largest AI-focused gathering ever organised globally. More than 20 Heads of State and Government and over 100 global industry leaders have already confirmed their participation. The summit will centre on the real-world impact of AI across sectors, reflecting India’s ambition to move from being primarily an IT services provider to becoming a global AI powerhouse.

“Our focus and strength has conventionally been in providing IT services. Now we have to convert this strength,” Vaishnaw said, emphasing that over the past two-and-a-half years, India’s IT industry has invested heavily in reskilling its workforce and building new AI-driven tools. He emphasised that organisations worldwide were increasingly seeking AI-based solutions that combine technological expertise with domain understanding, a gap that India’s IT sector is positioning itself to bridge.

Highlighting the second layer of India’s AI stack — the model layer — Vaishnaw revealed that a bouquet of sovereign AI models would be launched at the summit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. According to the Minister, several of these models have performed strongly in benchmark tests, in some cases outperforming leading global systems such as OpenAI and Gemini Pro. He said the results demonstrated India’s ability to build world-class AI models through frugal innovation and efficient resource utilisation.

Moreover, Vaishnaw stressed that progress in semiconductor development — the “chip layer” of the AI stack — had been significant. He expressed satisfaction that India’s design capabilities had advanced to a new level, with startups and research teams developing cutting-edge solutions that are expected to bear fruit in the coming years.

Underscoring the rapid pace of AI-driven change, Vaishnaw called for urgent preparedness across education, industry and governance.

“The pace of transformation is going to be very fast,” he said, adding that India’s coordinated push across talent, models, chips and applications would help position the country at the forefront of the global AI revolution.