India is aggressively pushing for technological self-reliance by backing local platforms, even as domestic enterprises struggle with a widening workforce readiness gap. Recent data reveal a stark mismatch between corporate adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and employees’ actual capabilities across Indian industries.
According to the latest People Readiness Report by Kyndryl India, only 25% of Indian organisations believe their workforce is adequately prepared to handle AI tools. This marks a sharp 12-percentage-point decline from 2025, highlighting a growing skills deficit.
Interestingly, this anxiety peaks at a time when 56% of Indian firms have already embedded AI deeply into their core processes, and India is finding ways to regulate AI in Fintech. A major leap from the 36% integration rate recorded last year. While 69% of companies have actively redesigned work roles to facilitate transitions, governance and upskilling frameworks remain vastly underdeveloped.
Concurrently, the central government is taking unprecedented steps to secure the nation’s sovereign technology ecosystem. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), through its IndiaAI Mission, is poised to secure a rare 1-2% equity stake in Bengaluru-based AI startup Sarvam AI. Valued at $1.5 billion, Sarvam AI recently secured $234 million as part of an ongoing $300 million funding round, with HCLTech leading as a strategic investor.
This historic government equity transaction will not involve cash. Instead, the state will receive compulsorily convertible debentures (CCDs) in exchange for providing ₹98.68 crore worth of critical GPU compute infrastructure, including 4,096 Nvidia H100 chips. This strategic intervention follows recent international export restrictions on advanced foreign models, proving that India must control its own underlying digital infrastructure.
The dual developments emphasise that while the Indian government is successfully securing structural foundations for indigenous AI, private enterprises must urgently scale up training budgets to ensure the domestic workforce is not left behind.
