How is the development of India's artificial intelligence industry progressing?

The second meaning of 'techno-feudalism' refers to the fact that India’s IT services firms are typically controlled by oligarchic, family-owned capital. Drawing on experiences from China or the United States, you might assume that IT services—being part of the high-tech sector—could foster several entrepreneurial tech startups. However, nearly all of India’s leading AI service providers are subsidiaries of family-run conglomerates. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), ranked first in output and employee count, operates under the Tata Group—the former Indian billionaire dynasty whose origins trace back to the 19th century: India’s first textile mill, first modern hotel, and first steel plant were all founded by the Tatas. Infosys, ranked second, was co-founded by Narayana Murthy, who sold most of his shares; yet day-to-day operations remain heavily influenced by the founding family. Similarly, Wipro and HCL are large, multigenerational family enterprises—father-to-son or father-to-daughter successions being the norm. The emergence of family-controlled conglomerates in developing countries is itself unremarkable. The issue lies in how many of India’s tech-sector family businesses first accumulated capital in unrelated industries, then leveraged price wars and subsidies to seize market share—eventually becoming industry titans. For instance, the current Indian billionaire kingpin, the Ambani family, originally built its fortune in textiles and petrochemicals. In 2016—just as India’s 4G rollout began—the Reliance Industries group, led by the Ambanis, invested massively: it acquired 4G spectrum licenses across all Indian states and erected countless cell towers, launching a three-and-a-half-month free data plan. This price war lasted three years, slashing nationwide mobile data prices by 95% and reducing the number of 4G operators to just three. Reliance Industrial amassed 370 million users and captured 45% market share. Its forays into e-commerce and new energy followed the same playbook. The Economist observed that Reliance’s rise in e-commerce stemmed not from superior service—but from its willingness to spend lavishly building an extensive offline retail network. By contrast, India’s emerging large-language-model startup Sarvam raised only over $200 million in its Series B round in June 2026. This model—first deploying massive capital expenditure and aggressive pricing to ‘enclose’ markets and scale user bases, only later focusing on profitability—has now migrated into India’s AI sector. Take Reliance again: in August 2025, it launched its own AI subsidiary, loudly announcing that its premium 5G subscribers could use AI tools co-developed with Google—for free. It then pledged $110 billion over seven years to build AI data centers, offering discounts to Indian enterprises using its AI services—a form of ‘feudal’ enclosure. At this point, you may ask: Don’t leading U.S. AI firms also pour money into AI infrastructure and battle fiercely for market share? Why should India’s approach necessarily fail? There are three main reasons. First, traditional conglomerates like Tata Group and Reliance Industries—entering AI from non-tech sectors—typically adhere to rigid, hierarchical management structures.

Billionaire | India’s Richest Person in 2025: Net Worth Exceeding ¥740 Billion, Leads India’s Largest Private Enterprise

He was born in 1957. His Bharti Enterprises spans telecommunications, insurance, real estate, education, retail, hospitality, agriculture, and food. Among its subsidiaries, Bharti Airtel is India’s second-largest mobile network operator, serving customers across India, Africa, South Asia, and other emerging markets. Last year, it acquired nearly 25% of UK-based BT Group; this March, it signed a cooperation agreement with Elon Musk’s Starlink. In October, it announced a strategic partnership with Google to establish India’s first AI hub in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh; it also partnered with IBM to jointly upgrade its newly launched Airtel Cloud platform. Savitri Jindal and family’s wealth declined 8% year-on-year to $40.2 billion, retaining third place on the list—and continuing their reign as India’s wealthiest woman. She and her four sons lead the O.P. Jindal Group, an Indian steel and energy giant. Its subsidiary Jindal Steel ranks among India’s largest private steel manufacturers, headquartered in New Delhi with production facilities in Chhattisgarh, Odisha, and Jharkhand—producing rails, steel plates, structural steel, and hot-rolled coils. 62-year-old Gautam Adani and family rank second, though they have fallen out of the ‘$100 billion club’, with wealth down 20.7% to $92 billion. He founded the Adani Group—one of India’s largest conglomerates—headquartered in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. Its portfolio includes publicly listed companies such as Adani Power, Adani Transmission, Adani Oil & Gas, Adani Wilmar, Adani Green Energy, and Adani Enterprises, covering energy, infrastructure, logistics, agriculture, and media. In recent years, the group has aggressively entered green energy. This June, Adani undertook intensive technical visits to China, signing India’s largest grid-scale energy storage project (722 MWh) with JinkoSolar, and engaging with CATL—the world’s largest battery manufacturer—and BYD, the Chinese EV giant, to explore potential battery manufacturing collaborations. Although his wealth fell by 12% ($14.5 billion), Mukesh Ambani—Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries—retains a net worth of $105 billion (approximately RMB 748.35 billion), remaining firmly within the ‘$100 billion club’ and once again topping India’s billionaire rankings.

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