AI should have real-world usefulness, N. Chandrasekaran and Ambani say

AI will be transformative for India, Tata Group chairman N. Chandrasekaran said in his keynote at the AI Impact Summit’s plenary. “AI is a foundational technology that cuts across all industries,” Mr. Chandrasekaran said. “AI is nothing artificial. It is real because it learns from data and learns faster every day, and it is not based on any fixed rules. It can scale and it does scale pretty rapidly. Putting all this together, AI to my mind is the next big infrastructure.”

“We are building AI at scale with trust, resilience, and long term competitiveness,” with incentives and financial support from the India Semiconductor Mission and the IndiaAI Mission, Mr. Chandrasekaran said. “AI will have a huge impact on our public services delivery. It will have a huge impact on enterprises around the world.” 

“If wisely used, I believe AI can usher in an era of super-abundance,” Mr. Ambani said in his keynote. “For the first time, humans are creating human-like systems that can learn, speak, analyse, move and produce autonomously … I see AI as a modern-day Akshaya Patra — the legendary vessel in Mahabharata that provided endless nourishment to all.”

“Today the world is debating a profound question,” Mr. Ambani said. “Will AI concentrate power in the hands of a few or will it democratise opportunity for all? Do we act as isolated nations — or as a united global family?” Mr. Ambani predicted that “India will emerge as one of the greatest AI powers in the world in the 21st century,” and that “Jio will play an even bigger role in India’s AI transformation.”

Mr. Ambani said that Jio will strive to reduce the “cost of intelligence” as it did the cost of internet access. “We are already started construction on multi-gigawatt, AI-ready data-centres at Jamnagar. Over 120 megawatts will come online in the second half of 2026 this year, [with] a clear path to gigawatt-scale compute for training and large-scale inference.”

“I believe that social relevance — not momentary craze — should drive AI growth in India,” Mr. Ambani said. Referring to chip and mineral embargoes, Mr. Ambani warned, “Be it chips or rare earths, AI works its magic through sharing, not hoarding.”