India can build serious AI with less capital than frontier labs: Peak XV’s Ravishankar
Mint India Investment Summit, Ravishankar said India’s AI opportunity lies less in outspending global leaders and more in building useful products quickly and cost-effectively at scale, leveraging the country’s deep engineering talent.He outlined two broader areas where Indian startups can still create large businesses, even if the country is not yet at the cutting edge of global AI development.The first opportunity, he said, is that India will be a quick adopter of AI across large, everyday use cases. As AI tools improve, many familiar consumer and service categories could be reimagined from the ground up, he said.“India will be a fast follower and a quick consumer of AI in areas such as customer support, citizen services, travel and jobs, where new companies are beginning to rebuild internet products with AI at the centre,” Ravishankar said.The second opportunity lies in the layers around AI itself: infrastructure, software and tools that help other companies build and use AI products.Ravishankar said Indian teams are well-placed because of the country’s large developer base and growing technical talent pool.
Many of these companies are being built through cross-border models, with engineering teams in India and customer-facing operations in the US, he added.Investor interest in Indian AI startups has stayed strong, but the gap with the US remains huge. Indian AI startups raised just over $643 million across 100 deals in 2025, according to Tracxn data.
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