India’s artificial intelligence workforce has grown by about 50% in the past two years. However, turning that growth into wider impact remains a challenge, said Ankit Bose, Head of AI at NASSCOM.
Speaking at the Convozen AI summit in Bengaluru, he said India stands “somewhere in the top 10” globally when measured across talent, infrastructure, research and development, and government and commercial readiness. The US remains number one, followed by China.
India has produced around 70,000 research papers over the past five years, Bose said. In comparison, the US has produced between 58,000 and 70,000 papers, while China has around 150,000.
Despite the volume of research, Bose pointed to a gap in impact. He referred to the H-Index score, which measures how many research papers are widely cited.
“Our H-Index score is 218 right versus the US. The US is 654 versus China which is 454,” he said.
He added that research in India “is still bookish. It has to lead to commercialization. It has to be in sync with the industry.”
Investment in AI in India stands between $7-10 billion and is growing at 20 to 25% each year. Even so, adoption across sectors is moderate.
NASSCOM’s AI Adoption Index places India at “2.4” on a scale of 0 to 4.
Bose said most generative AI deployment is focused on general business functions. “We studied overall the Gen AI use cases. And 75% of them fall under sales and marketing, software engineering, software product development, testing, customer operations and product management.”
He said if legal and finance functions are included, it accounts for “more than 85% of all the deployment which is happening in Gen AI.”
Sector-specific use remains limited. “We hear very few success stories for the healthcare provider to adopt Gen AI in the core function,” he said, adding that attempts are being made but examples are still few. Meanwhile, manufacturing has been the top sector to adopt AI, even faster than banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI).
Within companies, acceptance of AI tools is also uneven, he said.
“The executive layer is gung-ho. The technical team is gung-ho. The mid tier and the end tier, they are not very happy or probably not very encouraged to use AI because of various reasons. They think their job is at risk,” Bose said.
He also spoke about operational hurdles. “Data and integration is the biggest issue,” he said. Strategy and return on investment are further concerns. Financial limits can slow projects as they move from pilot stages to full use.
Looking ahead, Bose said AI could contribute strongly to India’s economic progress by 2035 through productivity and innovation. He highlighted citizen-focused governance, MSME growth, healthcare coordination and education as key areas.