‘Price dumping of AI into India’: BharatGen CEO Rishi Bal warns cheap foreign models threaten local ecosystem
He cautioned that India must prioritise domestic AI capabilities to protect data sovereignty and economic interests, while ensuring startups have affordable local options.
- Feb 17, 2026,
- Updated Feb 17, 2026 7:00 AM IST
India could become dangerously dependent on foreign artificial intelligence (AI) platforms if it fails to develop its own ecosystem, BharatGen Chief Executive Rishi Bal has warned, arguing that global tech firms are effectively “dumping” AI services into the country at unsustainably low prices.
Speaking to Business Today in an interview on the sidelines of the India AI Impact Summit 2026, Bal said Indian users are unintentionally strengthening overseas models while receiving limited long-term benefits.
“Today, we're in this place where all of us are using ChatGPT. And that data is going to make somebody else's model better. And then we are going to buy that same model back,” Bal said. “That sounds a lot like exporting cotton and importing textile.”
He cautioned that India must prioritise domestic AI capabilities to protect data sovereignty and economic interests, while ensuring startups have affordable local options.
“I think we need to be very careful about doing that,” he said, adding that the country must “offer viable alternatives in India” so startups can run models locally at lower cost.
‘Price dumping’ could cripple local developers
Bal’s strongest warning centred on what he described as predatory pricing by foreign AI providers, which he likened to dumping practices seen in traditional manufacturing sectors.
“What is happening is we're getting a price dumping of AI into India,” Bal said. “In any other industry, if you took a product that may cost a trillion dollars to make, and provided that service to another country for free, we would say … you are price dumping, we would ban those imports.”
“But when it comes to AI, we welcome it with open doors, as if there are no consequences,” he added.
He argued that ultra-cheap or free access to advanced models could undermine domestic developers before they have a chance to scale, locking India into long-term technological dependence.
Sovereign AI push gathers pace
BharatGen, a government-backed consortium developing sovereign artificial intelligence systems, launched a 17-billion parameter multilingual foundation model supporting 22 Indian languages at the India AI Impact Summit 2026 on 16 February. The model, called Param2 17B, has been built from the ground up by BharatGen and is designed as a Mixture of Experts (MoE) system trained extensively on Indian data.
Bal acknowledged that inexpensive access to global AI tools can boost productivity and economic growth in the near term, making policy responses complex.
“It’s a hard conversation, because in the short term, the productivity gains that you're going to get are a GDP growth vector,” he said. “You have to manage that short term … and long term where we have to make sure this price dumping needs to stop.”
His comments come as India accelerates efforts to build sovereign AI infrastructure and homegrown models under government-backed initiatives, amid rising concern about reliance foreign technology providers.
Bal said affordable domestic models would allow Indian startups to innovate without exporting valuable data overseas, strengthening the country’s ability to compete globally while retaining control over critical digital assets.
“If we don’t build these capabilities ourselves,” he suggested, India risks becoming a permanent consumer rather than a producer in the AI economy.
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India could become dangerously dependent on foreign artificial intelligence (AI) platforms if it fails to develop its own ecosystem, BharatGen Chief Executive Rishi Bal has warned, arguing that global tech firms are effectively “dumping” AI services into the country at unsustainably low prices.
Speaking to Business Today in an interview on the sidelines of the India AI Impact Summit 2026, Bal said Indian users are unintentionally strengthening overseas models while receiving limited long-term benefits.
“Today, we're in this place where all of us are using ChatGPT. And that data is going to make somebody else's model better. And then we are going to buy that same model back,” Bal said. “That sounds a lot like exporting cotton and importing textile.”
He cautioned that India must prioritise domestic AI capabilities to protect data sovereignty and economic interests, while ensuring startups have affordable local options.
“I think we need to be very careful about doing that,” he said, adding that the country must “offer viable alternatives in India” so startups can run models locally at lower cost.
‘Price dumping’ could cripple local developers
Bal’s strongest warning centred on what he described as predatory pricing by foreign AI providers, which he likened to dumping practices seen in traditional manufacturing sectors.
“What is happening is we're getting a price dumping of AI into India,” Bal said. “In any other industry, if you took a product that may cost a trillion dollars to make, and provided that service to another country for free, we would say … you are price dumping, we would ban those imports.”
“But when it comes to AI, we welcome it with open doors, as if there are no consequences,” he added.
He argued that ultra-cheap or free access to advanced models could undermine domestic developers before they have a chance to scale, locking India into long-term technological dependence.
Sovereign AI push gathers pace
BharatGen, a government-backed consortium developing sovereign artificial intelligence systems, launched a 17-billion parameter multilingual foundation model supporting 22 Indian languages at the India AI Impact Summit 2026 on 16 February. The model, called Param2 17B, has been built from the ground up by BharatGen and is designed as a Mixture of Experts (MoE) system trained extensively on Indian data.
Bal acknowledged that inexpensive access to global AI tools can boost productivity and economic growth in the near term, making policy responses complex.
“It’s a hard conversation, because in the short term, the productivity gains that you're going to get are a GDP growth vector,” he said. “You have to manage that short term … and long term where we have to make sure this price dumping needs to stop.”
His comments come as India accelerates efforts to build sovereign AI infrastructure and homegrown models under government-backed initiatives, amid rising concern about reliance foreign technology providers.
Bal said affordable domestic models would allow Indian startups to innovate without exporting valuable data overseas, strengthening the country’s ability to compete globally while retaining control over critical digital assets.
“If we don’t build these capabilities ourselves,” he suggested, India risks becoming a permanent consumer rather than a producer in the AI economy.
For Unparalleled coverage of India's Businesses and Economy – Subscribe to Business Today Magazine