Davos, Switzerland – India’s Minister for Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw has rejected an assessment by the International Monetary Fund that placed the country in a second grouping of global artificial intelligence powers, saying international benchmarks show India among the leading nations, remarks made at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday.
Vaishnaw was responding to comments by IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva during discussions at the Swiss resort, where global political and business leaders are meeting. The minister questioned the criteria used by the IMF and pointed to findings from Stanford University. “I don’t know what the IMF criteria is but Stanford places India at 3rd in the world for AI preparedness. I don’t think your classification is correct,” he said, adding that India should be seen as “clearly in the first group.”
The minister said India is developing capabilities across what he described as five layers of artificial intelligence architecture, namely the application layer, model layer, chip layer, infrastructure layer and energy layer. According to Vaishnaw, the country is working across all these areas and making steady progress, a strategy he linked to India’s position as one of the fastest growing major economies.
Speaking on the approach being taken, Vaishnaw said India’s strength lies in delivering practical AI solutions for businesses rather than focusing only on very large models. “On the application layer, we will probably be the biggest supplier of services to the world,” he said, explaining that Indian firms work closely with enterprises to understand their operations and deploy AI solutions. “ROI doesn’t come from creating a very large model,” he said, adding that most use cases can be addressed with models ranging between 20 and 50 billion parameters.
He said India is already developing a range of models within this scale that are being deployed across multiple sectors to improve productivity and efficiency, with the government focusing on ensuring that AI adoption spreads widely through the economy.
The comments come as New Delhi prepares to host an AI Summit next month, where India plans to present its vision of responsible and inclusive artificial intelligence and to showcase progress in skills development, adoption and sector-based applications. Vaishnaw said international assessments back India’s position. “Stanford places India as third in terms of AI penetration, in terms of AI preparedness, and in terms of AI talent… Actually, on AI talent, it is number two,” he said.
Addressing another session at the forum, the minister said confirmed investment of 70 billion United States dollars has been secured for AI infrastructure, with an additional 50 billion dollars expected over the next 12 months. He said the upcoming India AI Impact summit would also focus on ensuring that technology benefits the global south.
Vaishnaw noted that India now has nearly 200 thousand startups and ranks among the top three startup ecosystems globally, with a growing shift toward deep technology. He expressed confidence that India would become one of the top four or five semiconductor nations worldwide. Outlining the country’s semiconductor strategy, he said around 75 percent of global chip volume lies in the 28 to 90 nanometer range used in electric vehicles, automobiles, railways, defence systems, telecom equipment and consumer electronics, with a clear path mapped toward seven nanometer technologies by 2030.
On the sidelines of the forum, Vaishnaw held meetings with IBM chief executive Arvind Krishna and Meta chief global affairs officer Joel Kaplan. In a social media post, the minister said global leaders increasingly view India as a key driver of innovation, as the country seeks to shape the global AI narrative beyond the dominance of the United States and China.
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