India must put skills at heart of AI push, failure not an option: Debjani Ghosh

India’s race to build artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure will fall short unless the country makes large-scale skilling its central priority, according to Debjani Ghosh, Fellow at NITI Aayog and former president of NASSCOM. 

“Skilling cannot be the side agenda or something that’s good to do,” Ghosh said at a Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) event in Delhi on 5 February. 

“Skilling has to become the central pillar of India’s AI playbook. It is that key that will ultimately unlock the pathways to impact,” she added. 

While India has stepped up investments in AI infrastructure, Ghosh said the real challenge lies in ensuring that people across society can actually use those tools.

“AI will transform India only when we humans are ready to use it to transform our day-to-day lives,” she said. “AI is just a tool. It is the enabler… at the end of the day, it is us, humans who are accountable, who are responsible for using it.”

Calling for closer collaboration between government, industry, academia and startups, Ghosh said India must treat AI-led transformation as a national mission. “Failure should not be an option,” she said, urging all stakeholders to work together as “Team India”.

Ghosh also welcomed the government’s recent Union Budget announcement to set up an Education to Employment and Enterprise (EEE) standing committee, saying India needs an end-to-end approach to building AI capabilities.

Turning to inclusive growth, Ghosh said micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) must lead India’s AI-driven transformation, describing the sector as both the country’s main employment engine and its “mobility ladder.”

“If productivity rises anywhere in this sector, it will impact millions,” she said. “Therefore, the ability of AI to unlock productivity matters the most for this sector.”