Can India Forge an AI Empire? Microsoft and Deloitte Leaders Clash Over “Sovereign AI” Strategy
India’s quest to carve out a global AI identity dominated the India Today Conclave 2025, where tech titans Puneet Chandok (Microsoft India President) and Nitin Mittal (Deloitte’s Global AI Leader) sparred over whether the nation should prioritize building sovereign AI infrastructure or adopt a pragmatic, efficiency-first approach using existing global tools.
The debate, framed by China’s meteoric rise in AI innovation, zeroed in on a critical question: Why is China outpacing India in developing breakthrough technologies like the DeepSeek model? Mittal acknowledged India’s strengths in “applying technology” to build a “progressive IT services ecosystem” but argued China’s edge stems from its focus on “product innovation.” “We need a product research mindset,” he admitted, while predicting Indian AI breakthroughs are “inevitable” given the industry’s rapid evolution: “In AI, we’re talking innovation in weeks, not years.”
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Chandok countered with a focus on resource constraints, asking, “Can we build these models… with fewer dollars and less energy consumption?” His remarks underscored India’s potential to leapfrog costly development cycles by optimizing existing AI frameworks.
The “Sovereign AI” debate intensified as Mittal likened AI infrastructure to national security: “AI is about manufacturing intelligence… That’s your sovereign capability.” He warned that relying solely on foreign tools would leave India dependent on others for “the digital product of today: intelligence.” Yet timelines remained vague. Mittal conceded achieving sovereign large language models (LLMs) requires aligning “entrepreneurship, investment, computing power, and engineering prowess”—a convergence he called “difficult to predict.”
Notably absent were concrete details on funding or policy roadmaps, highlighting the challenges ahead. While China allocates billions to AI sovereignty and product R&D, India’s path remains undefined—caught between ambition and pragmatism.
The Conclave made one reality clear: India’s AI identity hinges on whether it bets big on homegrown LLMs or embraces hybrid global-local models. As Chandok noted, “The journey is just beginning.”
