Q4: this is from one of the top ai reporters from Silicon Valley
* you are probably the most influential conceptual voice on ai from India. How do you think India with its paucity of risk capital, dearth of ai talent and lack of a complete ecosystem – ever be able to even remotely compete with China and London*
We can’t.
Round one is lost to USA and maybe even to China. There is no denial and no defence. Anything said to the contrary will fail a sanity check.
I did try very hard when I went to CP Gurnani almost pleading of TechM to lead in the space. Infosys had too many issues with Vishal Sikka etc and TCS/ Cyrus Mistry drama was playing out. Roshini wasn’t as yet in control and Shiv was not very active. I therefore thought that TechM was the best placed.
The problem was that Anand Mahindra wanted to divert reserves of TechM to buy Paninfarina which made super cars. It just didn’t make sense for TechM money to be diverted into such unrelated misadventures. In more ways than one if reflected a serious governance issue. There was no institutionalisation and a bunch of yes men were occupying the Board. To ensure there was no confusion or alternates on the table – they killed the data centre project.
Manish Vyas was head of telecom in the US but he lived and operated from Plano in Texas. It is akin to participating in the investment banking sector by opening operations in Munger Bihar and thinking that you are in the midst of action.
Of course there was a lot of confusion when the business model started failing and they wrongly thought that importing some Infosys talent as an upgrade for a tired and retired Gurnani would save the day. It didn’t and the key team quit to pursue more favourable avenues.
So Round 1 failure of India needs to be admitted. It doesn’t matter whether you blame Chandrasekhar or Vishal Sikka or Cp Gurnani. With open eyes and free advice they failed. Sometimes it is not in the destiny of a country or company to succeed. Bad luck has many names and forms. For TechM it was Paninfarina. That is when I also realised that the emperor wears no clothes.
Promoter led companies have no hope. Adani and Ambani are a better format than Anand Mahindra. It is thus not worth wasting a breath more on that group.
But TCS was and is different. Last year I tugged down to Magarpatta to meet their R&D team. It was actually quite impressive in terms of people. The IITians there were all blue blood genius material – with a dedication and knowledge base which was a delight. Most I know since college. The Chairman was an impediment as was this cultural non diversity problem but I expected Noel Tata to fix it quickly.
Also I don’t think it is the role of governments to build ai models or to fund them. Open ai or Anthropic are not public sector companies.
So round one is lost.
But the ai battle is not.
In my next post I will explain why not ? And how India could win
