Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis at the World Economic Forum in Davos, said that India should focus on applied AI. Demis Hassabis believes that the country should be focussing on applied AI since the industry is already saturated with a lot of foundational AI model providers like ChatGPT, Grok AI, Perplexity, etc.
“Indians love AI and they love using it. I think it’s going to be a great technology for India economically” Demis Hassabis told Moneycontrol at World Economic Forum.
“I would probably say applied AI is the right place to focus at this point … work with foundation model providers,” he added.
Should India focus on Foundational AI?
The remarks made by Demis Hassabis have become even more important considering the debate in India on this issue. There has been an increasing debate on whether india should focus on Foundational AI models or the application aspects of AI. These are important discussions since India is also the biggest market for the AI companies and Big Tech companies like Google, Meta and Amazon.
Build vs deploy debate
Many tech stalwarts like Infosys chairman Nandan Nilekani believe that India should be the AI use-case capital of the world, rather than focusing on the hyper competitive race of building Large Language Models (LLMs). However, entrepreneurs like Sarvam AI’s Vivek Raghavan have argued that without sovereign AI models, the country will become a “digital colony”.
Global AI pioneers like Yoshua Bengio have previously highlighted the geopolitical implications of AI. “Countries that invest in building their AI systems will have a geopolitical advantage,” Bengio told Moneycontrol in January 2025, adding that there’s a need for governments to fund and incentivise foundational model development.
Over the past year, the Indian government has selected around 12 players including Sarvam, Tech Mahindra, Gnani.ai, and Gan AI to build foundational large language models.
Why is Demis’s statement relevant?
The Google DeepMind chief is expected to make his maiden visit to India next month for the India AI Impact Summit from February 15 to 20. “I’ve never really visited India before, so I’m excited to go to the Summit and also see the team,” he said. India is also Google’s largest market in terms of user base for its products and a crucial region for the growth of its AI efforts.
