Today, Artificial Intelligence is no longer merely another technology sector. It is becoming a foundational layer of national power alongside defence, space, energy, telecommunications, semiconductors and financial infrastructure. For India, therefore, the question is not whether we should embrace AI, but whether we should retain sufficient sovereign control over the AI systems on which our economy, citizens and government will increasingly depend going forward.

This is my core central point for Sovereign AI. This is why Sovereign AI matters most:

Sovereign AI should not mean technological isolation. It should mean that India retains the ability to control, govern, secure and deploy critical AI capabilities within its own jurisdiction, particularly when national security, citizen data, financial systems, public administration and critical infrastructure are involved.

The strategic significance is enormous. AI systems will increasingly process health records, financial transactions, government databases, intellectual property and citizens’ personal information. If these workloads become entirely dependent on foreign-controlled models, cloud platforms, compute infrastructure or proprietary ecosystems, India could create a new form of technological dependency less visible than traditional dependence, but potentially more consequential.

The World Bank’s World Development Report 2026 offers an important perspective. It does not argue that developing countries must spend enormous sums building frontier models from scratch. Instead, it recommends that countries “adopt, adapt and advance”: use available technologies, adapt them to local languages, institutions and needs and progressively build domestic capabilities.

This is precisely where India can develop a pragmatic model of sovereignty. India does not need to reproduce every frontier model developed elsewhere. But it does need sovereign control over critical layers of the AI stack: trusted compute, secure data infrastructure, high-quality domestic datasets, indigenous models, cybersecurity, model evaluation, AI safety and the institutional capacity to govern AI. A very important observation by the World Bank indeed.

Data Governance and Protection

Data is perhaps the strongest argument.

India’s enormous digital ecosystem generates vast quantities of information through banking, healthcare, telecommunications, commerce, education, transport and government services. Properly governed, this data can become an engine of national development. Poorly governed, it can become a strategic vulnerability.

The Digital Personal Data Protection framework provides an important legal foundation for responsible processing and protection of personal data. But legislation alone cannot create technological sovereignty. India needs sovereign data infrastructure in which sensitive datasets can be stored, processed and used for AI within trusted environments. This means secure data centres, encryption, identity and access management, auditability, privacy-preserving technologies and clear data-governance protocols.

For particularly sensitive applications, India should also consider air-gapped or tightly isolated AI environments, especially for defence, critical infrastructure, space technology, strategic research and sensitive government workloads.

Sovereign AI is ultimately about trust:

Citizens must trust that medical and personal information will remain protected. Banks must trust that AI systems processing financial information cannot be manipulated.

Government departments must trust that sensitive databases cannot be accessed through hidden dependencies. Businesses must trust that proprietary information used by AI systems will remain secure.

Cyber fraud, deepfakes, model poisoning, data leakage, adversarial attacks and algorithmic manipulation are no longer hypothetical risks. India therefore needs national AI testing and red-teaming capabilities, continuous model auditing, provenance mechanisms for synthetic media, cybersecurity standards and clear accountability for high-risk AI systems.

Investing in Computational Infrastructure

There is another fundamental requirement: Compute:

Without compute, there is no meaningful AI sovereignty. India’s IndiaAI Mission has recognised this reality by investing in shared compute infrastructure, indigenous foundation models, datasets, skills and Safe & Trusted AI. Government initiatives have also supported sovereign models designed for Indian languages and use cases.

Here I wish to state that the proposed 8-exaflop AI supercomputer being deployed in India through the UAE’s G42 and Cerebras, in partnership with Indian institutions including C-DAC, is therefore very strategically significant. Its importance is not simply the extraordinary computing capacity involved. It demonstrates that international cooperation and technological sovereignty need not be contradictory. 

Foreign technology, capital and expertise can strengthen India’s sovereign capability when critical infrastructure is deployed in India and operates under Indian governance requirements.

Building a Sovereign AI Ecosystem

India should therefore build a sovereign AI ecosystem, not an isolated AI ecosystem.

The objective should not be autarky. India cannot and need not manufacture every advanced semiconductor, develop every foundation model or eliminate every international technology dependency. Instead, India should pursue strategic redundancy, interoperability and trusted partnerships.

Critical government workloads should not depend on a single foreign cloud provider or proprietary model. India should maintain multiple trusted providers, domestic compute capacity, open standards and portable data architectures. This will reduce vendor lock-in and strengthen national bargaining power.

Indigenous Foundation Models

At the same time, India must invest in indigenous foundation models and Indian-language AI. India’s linguistic diversity and distinctive public digital infrastructure demand systems that understand Indian realities on India’s terms.

Sovereign AI should ultimately be placed in the same strategic category as defence technology, space capability, semiconductor capacity and critical digital infrastructure. It does not mean restricting innovation; it means protecting the foundations upon which innovation depends.

Controlling AI Capabilities

For policymakers, the key question is simple: can India continue operating its essential AI systems during a geopolitical crisis, cyberattack or disruption of global technology supply chains without asking another country or corporation for permission?

That is the real test of sovereignty.

For a Viksit Bharat, data, computation and intelligence will become strategic resources. Protecting them is not protectionism; it is prudent nation-building. India should remain globally connected, internationally collaborative and technologically ambitious but sovereign enough to protect its citizens, institutions and national interests.

The nations that control their critical AI capabilities will increasingly influence the rules of the digital century. India should ensure that it is not merely a user of that future, but one of its architects.

Not a retreat from globalisation; it is India’s way of entering it with confidence, resilience and agency. Amply demonstrated in the very recently and successfully concluded BRICS summit in New Delhi.

(The author holds a dual masters degree from Europe and the US and is an ex-international corporate banker currently serving as Visiting Professor in international marketing at a university in Bengaluru, India. The views expressed are personal. He can be reached at rameshkumarn180@gmail.com )

References:

1. World Bank, World Development Report 2026: The Promise of Artificial Intelligence.

2. Government of India, IndiaAI Mission and India AI Impact Summit 2026 materials.

3. G42, “UAE to Deploy 8 Exaflop Supercomputer in India to Strengthen Local Sovereign AI Infrastructure,” February 2026.