India’s AI Future Lies in Deep-Tech Founders and Better Data, says Panel at IndiaAI Summit

India’s next generation of AI companies will not follow the traditional startup playbook of pairing a business founder with a CTO. Instead, they will be built by deeply technical founders “tinkering and hacking their way through problems,” speakers said at the IndiaAI Summit 2026 in the national capital.

At a session titled ‘AI for Bharat’, investors and entrepreneurs acknowledged that while India may not be leading the global AI race, it is uniquely positioned to build powerful application-led companies tailored for domestic users.

“Over the last two or three years, the notion that India is behind in AI came up. To be honest, we are not leading in AI, there are catch-ups,” said Aakrit Vaish of Activate. “But AI for Bharat will be deeply built by technical founders. Traditionally, company building used to happen with one business founder coordinating with a CTO. But the new AI companies will have two tech nerds who are tinkering and hacking their way and then ultimately build the company.”

The discussion reflected a broader shift in India’s startup ecosystem, where deep-tech capabilities are increasingly seen as core to company formation rather than an add-on layer.

Karthik Reddy, Managing Partner at Blume Ventures, said India’s strength lies in building for its own market. “While India might be behind in the AI race, the country has a unique advantage. Most founders are building for Indian audiences. The Indian customer wants value at the same price front,” he said. Drawing a parallel with telecom infrastructure, he added, “Just as 4G and 5G helped in distribution, AI to me is that frontier.”

The panel repeatedly returned to the issue of data, describing it as India’s biggest untapped opportunity. Ritesh Malik of Innov8 argued that the lack of structured, high-quality datasets is holding back meaningful AI innovation.

“The biggest opportunity in AI today in India is data. There is virtually no data,” he said, contrasting India with markets such as the US and China. “China is one large gene pool. India has 2,500 gene pools. Nagaland has a different gene pool. Punjabis have different gene pools. We don’t talk about thalassemia, we don’t talk about anemia.”

He added that much of the world’s AI systems are trained on data generated by the wealthiest populations. “AI’s biggest challenge is the data is going to come from the richest people in the world. We need to change that. Start creating good data sets. That itself, in my view, is a $10 billion opportunity.”

Malik also pointed to gaps in financial and linguistic datasets. “We try to predict which stock will run in five days by doing 83-parameter research. The biggest challenge today for which we want to pay money is correct NSE 500 stock parameter data. All the data is wrong. S&P 500 data is phenomenal. Nifty has no data,” he said. “The same way, there is absolutely no data on voice languages. If the data is not good, machines are stupid.”

On the policy debate around sovereign AI, Akshay Chaturvedi of Leverage Edu said India need not compete at every layer of the AI stack. “While I do accept that sovereign AI is needed, it's okay to focus on India and the application layer. It's okay to build over WhatsApp,” he said, suggesting that distribution through mass platforms can drive faster adoption.

From an investor perspective, Tej Kapoor of ICICI Venture said there is strong early-stage activity in AI. “We see a lot of early-stage AI companies,” he said, adding that the firm recently invested in Unbox Robotics, reflecting growing interest in robotics and automation alongside pure software plays.

The session saw participation from Jasminder Singh Gulati of Native AI, Aakrit Vaish of Activate, Akshay Chaturvedi of Leverage Edu, Tej Kapoor of ICICI Venture, Karthik Reddy of Blume Ventures, Ramesh Raskar of MIT and Ritesh Malik of Innov8.

The IndiaAI Summit is being held in New Delhi from February 16 to 20, 2026, following global gatherings such as the AI Action Summit in Paris in 2025, the AI Seoul Summit in 2024 and the AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park in 2023. As discussions in the capital made clear, India’s AI ambitions may hinge less on replicating Silicon Valley’s model and more on building deep technical teams and robust, locally relevant datasets for Bharat