Opportunities created by Artificial Intelligence (AI) will help bring global talent back home, said Ashwini Vaishnaw, Union Minister for Railways, Communications, and Electronics & Information Technology.
“This is a valuable opportunity to bring talent back to India,” he added. Highlighting the potential of India's growing AI ecosystem, the minister expressed hope that some of the talented engineers behind these AI innovations would choose to return and work in India—a move he called a true win for the country.
“What we once called a brain drain should now become a universal drain,” Vaishnaw added. “The opportunity is here—and it’s ours to seize.”
Vaishnaw was speaking at the “India AI Make in India – Make AI Work for India” event in Delhi. Further, speaking about the IT industry, he said it is entering a pivotal phase of transformation. He highlighted the need to proactively adapt and align talent development with rapid technological shifts.
“The IT industry is on the cusp of a major transition. It’s up to us to harness this change rather than be disrupted by it. Whenever there’s a technological leap this big, aligning industry efforts with talent development is crucial,” he said.
He emphasized the government’s support for AI through a growing ecosystem—highlighting the launch of India-made CCTV cameras, expanded access to AI computing power, and ongoing efforts to support startups building indigenous AI models. Vaishnaw revealed that the second round of compute infrastructure has scaled to 34,000 GPUs, with more on the way.
“Earlier, we worried whether India could match the global scale in AI infrastructure. Today, with 34,000 GPUs deployed and more coming, we have built significant capacity,” he added. To simplify, GPUs, or Graphics Processing Units, are high-performance chips that handle complex computations essential for training AI models.
As part of the broader Rs 10,372 crore IndiaAI Mission, the country is also developing its own GPUs, enhancing the AI Data Kosh (which already houses 367 datasets), and rolling out a nationwide talent development program covering everything from beginner-level skills to PhD-level foundational research.
