Chief Economic Advisor V. Anantha Nageswaran on Monday said India cannot afford to delay the adoption of artificial intelligence for inclusive growth, warning that every year of inaction would narrow the country’s economic and technological choices.
Speaking on the sidelines of the India AI Impact Summit 2026, Nageswaran said India must act with urgency to harness AI’s benefits and could potentially become the first large society where human capability and machine intelligence reinforce each other.
“India needs to act now to use the benefits of AI to promote inclusive growth,” he said, stressing that progress in artificial intelligence “will not happen by drift” and would require urgency, political will and strong state capacity.
The CEA called for a “Team India” approach involving the government, private sector, academia and policymakers, and underlined the importance of strengthening foundational education and scaling high-quality skills.
He said the first step towards AI-led prosperity must begin with reforms in education and foundational skills, alongside the expansion of labour-intensive service sectors and the removal of regulatory bottlenecks. Nageswaran cautioned that a lack of calibrated action could lead to social and economic instability.
Meanwhile, S. Krishnan, Secretary in the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, said the development of artificial intelligence must remain human-centric and democratically accessible.
Krishnan said the government’s key message is that AI should ensure democratic access to resources while keeping people at the centre of technological transformation. “There needs to be democratic access to AI resources, and it must be done in a way that people are at the centre of this process,” he said.
Describing AI as a powerful driver of economic growth, Krishnan said it has the potential to accelerate development not only in India but across the Global South.
Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said it was a matter of pride that people from across the world are coming to India to participate in the India AI Impact Summit.
The AI Expo is being held from February 16 to 20 alongside the Summit at the same venue in the national capital.
Spread across 10 arenas covering more than 70,000 square metres, the Expo is bringing together global technology companies, startups, academia and research institutions, Union Ministries, state governments and international partners.
– IANS
