India aims to transition from services to product innovation

India's Minister for Electronics and IT, Ashwini Vaishnaw, stated that the country needs to move from being a services-based economy to a product-driven one. This includes both software and hardware development. He emphasized the importance of collaboration among academia, startups, and researchers to create new solutions. Vaishnaw spoke at an event recognizing the winners of the ‘Chips 2 Startups’ initiative and highlighted the need for India to advance in chip design and production. He mentioned the RISC-V architecture as a promising open-source technology that could lead to sustainable chip products. Abhishek Singh, CEO of the IndiaAI Mission, warned that failing to build its own large language models (LLMs) may cost India more than the investment needed to develop them. Singh stressed the goal of creating a homegrown AI model that is voice-enabled to include all Indians, especially the 500 million who are not yet digital users. Minister of State for Electronics and IT, Jitin Prasada, urged industry leaders to prioritize research and development. He encouraged collaboration and investment from established IT companies in India to advance AI technologies. Singh called for major firms like TCS and Infosys to invest in Indian AI research, similar to how other global tech giants operate.