At the BT Best Bank Summit, Ashishkumar Chauhan pushed back against what he described as an exaggerated narrative around the global AI race. Speaking to Aabha Bakaya of Business Today TV, the NSE chief framed the AI battle as a geopolitical contest between the United States and China — one projecting capital dominance, the other open-source disruption. But he cautioned against accepting the idea that the race is already lost for others. Chauhan argued that India’s strength historically has not been inventing foundational technologies, but mastering and scaling them. Just as India became the world’s services capital without inventing chips or operating systems, AI represents another layer of services where productivity can expand dramatically. He dismissed claims that AI would wipe out IT jobs in the near term as “marketing” and psychological posturing. Instead, he suggested India’s resourcefulness and ability to solve complex problems will define its role in the next phase of the global technology cycle.