AI Summit 2026: How Sovereign AI can help India drive growth, jobs and digital governance - experts weigh in
At AI Summit 2026, global experts discussed how India can leverage sovereign AI to balance innovation with returns, jobs, and national interest. The focus remained on aligning AI investments with productivity, governance efficiency, and long-term economic value.
- Feb 18, 2026,
- Updated Feb 18, 2026 2:23 PM IST
At the AI Summit 2026, a recurring theme cut across discussions by global founders, investors and policymakers: artificial intelligence must move beyond hype and align with revenue, productivity and long-term value creation. As trillions of dollars flow into data centres, large language models and AI infrastructure, experts debated whether returns will justify the scale of capital deployed — and what this means for countries like India navigating the next phase of the AI cycle.
M R Rangaswami, Founder of Indiaspora, struck a cautionary note on investor patience. “Again the key question here is like you mentioned, hundreds of billions of dollars are going into data centers into investing in LLMs and the reward has been promised to come in the future. The question is how long can investors wait for the rewards to be recognized?” he said, adding that with nearly a trillion dollars expected to be invested in data centres, revenues would eventually need to scale to similar levels. While acknowledging the potential for transformative outcomes, Rangaswami warned of bubble-like euphoria unless AI adoption delivers visible return on investment (ROI) in a reasonable timeframe.
Jonathan Siddharth, Founder and CEO of Turing, offered a more expansive view of AI’s economic impact. Drawing from his work with frontier labs such as OpenAI, Anthropic, DeepMind and Meta, he argued that AI has crossed a critical inflection point. “This year has been an important year where AI has shifted from passing tests to doing real work,” Siddharth said. He framed the opportunity in terms of a massive total addressable market—$30 trillion in digital knowledge work alone—and described AI as “intelligence as an API” capable of reshaping every profession. “I think we're about to enter a golden age of productivity,” he added, noting that humans are increasingly moving from doing work to verifying the output of AI agents.
From a policy perspective, Aneesh Chopra, Chief Strategy Officer at Arcadia and a former US policymaker, highlighted the role of enabling frameworks in unlocking AI-driven ROI. Drawing parallels with the fibre-optic buildout during the digitisation era, he argued that utilisation rates for AI infrastructure are already higher than earlier technology cycles. Chopra also stressed that entrepreneurship and regulatory clarity will be key, particularly as governments redefine how human labour and automation coexist. In sectors such as healthcare, he noted, outcome-based reimbursement models can accelerate AI adoption by allowing “an army of AI agents supporting a doctor.”
India's experiment with sovereign AI
For India, the discussion sharpened around sovereign AI — an area Siddharth believes is critical for national competitiveness. “Firstly, I think India should invest in sovereign AI,” he said, advocating for a government-backed foundation model fine-tuned by Indian talent and trained on proprietary public-sector data. Such a model, he explained, could coexist with frontier global models, orchestrating tasks while retaining control over sensitive data, governance workflows and national security priorities. “You have to be in control of your destiny and a big part of it is being control of the data that goes into the models,” Siddharth said, calling data India’s primary differentiator rather than algorithms or compute.
The implications extend well beyond technology. Siddharth warned of significant job disruption as digital knowledge work evolves, urging rapid reskilling and a fundamental rethink of education systems for a post–super intelligence world. Rangaswami echoed the need for balance, arguing that while long-term societal gains are real, investors still require clearer medium-term objectives. Drawing lessons from the dotcom era, he said capital cycles can produce transformative companies—but only if expectations, timelines and policy frameworks converge.
As India positions itself in the global AI race, the consensus at AI Summit 2026 was clear: sovereign AI is not just a technological ambition, but a strategic tool. If aligned with education reform, workforce transition and enabling regulation, it could allow India to harness AI’s productivity gains while safeguarding economic sovereignty—and ensure that the next wave of intelligence-driven growth delivers both returns and resilience.
At the AI Summit 2026, a recurring theme cut across discussions by global founders, investors and policymakers: artificial intelligence must move beyond hype and align with revenue, productivity and long-term value creation. As trillions of dollars flow into data centres, large language models and AI infrastructure, experts debated whether returns will justify the scale of capital deployed — and what this means for countries like India navigating the next phase of the AI cycle.
M R Rangaswami, Founder of Indiaspora, struck a cautionary note on investor patience. “Again the key question here is like you mentioned, hundreds of billions of dollars are going into data centers into investing in LLMs and the reward has been promised to come in the future. The question is how long can investors wait for the rewards to be recognized?” he said, adding that with nearly a trillion dollars expected to be invested in data centres, revenues would eventually need to scale to similar levels. While acknowledging the potential for transformative outcomes, Rangaswami warned of bubble-like euphoria unless AI adoption delivers visible return on investment (ROI) in a reasonable timeframe.
Jonathan Siddharth, Founder and CEO of Turing, offered a more expansive view of AI’s economic impact. Drawing from his work with frontier labs such as OpenAI, Anthropic, DeepMind and Meta, he argued that AI has crossed a critical inflection point. “This year has been an important year where AI has shifted from passing tests to doing real work,” Siddharth said. He framed the opportunity in terms of a massive total addressable market—$30 trillion in digital knowledge work alone—and described AI as “intelligence as an API” capable of reshaping every profession. “I think we're about to enter a golden age of productivity,” he added, noting that humans are increasingly moving from doing work to verifying the output of AI agents.
From a policy perspective, Aneesh Chopra, Chief Strategy Officer at Arcadia and a former US policymaker, highlighted the role of enabling frameworks in unlocking AI-driven ROI. Drawing parallels with the fibre-optic buildout during the digitisation era, he argued that utilisation rates for AI infrastructure are already higher than earlier technology cycles. Chopra also stressed that entrepreneurship and regulatory clarity will be key, particularly as governments redefine how human labour and automation coexist. In sectors such as healthcare, he noted, outcome-based reimbursement models can accelerate AI adoption by allowing “an army of AI agents supporting a doctor.”
India's experiment with sovereign AI
For India, the discussion sharpened around sovereign AI — an area Siddharth believes is critical for national competitiveness. “Firstly, I think India should invest in sovereign AI,” he said, advocating for a government-backed foundation model fine-tuned by Indian talent and trained on proprietary public-sector data. Such a model, he explained, could coexist with frontier global models, orchestrating tasks while retaining control over sensitive data, governance workflows and national security priorities. “You have to be in control of your destiny and a big part of it is being control of the data that goes into the models,” Siddharth said, calling data India’s primary differentiator rather than algorithms or compute.
The implications extend well beyond technology. Siddharth warned of significant job disruption as digital knowledge work evolves, urging rapid reskilling and a fundamental rethink of education systems for a post–super intelligence world. Rangaswami echoed the need for balance, arguing that while long-term societal gains are real, investors still require clearer medium-term objectives. Drawing lessons from the dotcom era, he said capital cycles can produce transformative companies—but only if expectations, timelines and policy frameworks converge.
As India positions itself in the global AI race, the consensus at AI Summit 2026 was clear: sovereign AI is not just a technological ambition, but a strategic tool. If aligned with education reform, workforce transition and enabling regulation, it could allow India to harness AI’s productivity gains while safeguarding economic sovereignty—and ensure that the next wave of intelligence-driven growth delivers both returns and resilience.