India This Week: AI, Renewables, and Global Influence
India has spent the past decade investing in new critical infrastructure and novel forms of diplomacy. The dual approach may pay dividends.
I am in India. Hot-off the Paris AI Summit and India Energy Week, three interconnected themes have featured prominently in Indian media and national discourse this week: Artificial Intelligence (AI), renewable energy, and India's evolving role in the international arena. India is seeking to use its strengths in renewable energy and its growing technological capacity in AI to solidify its global influence. Security concerns, including in the cyber domain, are further fuelling AI development and partnerships.
India's investments in digital infrastructure, renewable energy, and global diplomacy are building confidence in its capacity to advance technology and energy security, and navigate geopolitical shifts. Indian newspapers' extensive foreign policy coverage fosters strong engagement with global affairs among policymakers, business leaders, and citizens. Conversations I had revealed widespread approval of New Delhi’s G20 hosting in 2023 and a consensus on India’s growing global influence.
1. Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a Strategic Imperative
Despite facing economic challenges and a strengthened opposition, Narendra Modi secured a rare third term as India’s prime minister last year, albeit by a narrow majority. Commentators have observed Mr. Modi’s “resilience”, noting his “rare ability to withstand setbacks and grow even stronger”. His co-hosting of the Paris AI Summit is seen as evidence of this quality, and a willingness to use this personal resilience to catapult India to a position of stronger global power too. Fresh off a historical victory in the Delhi legislature, were a national election held today, his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would now reportedly win a majority on its own.
India's co-chairing of the Paris AI Summit is viewed as a significant accomplishment. It is broadly seen as a major and deserved success for Mr. Modi and for India, signalling both India's technological strengths and its recognition on the global stage. The story of the transformative effect of the "India stack" (government-backed APIs upon which third parties can build software with access to government IDs, payment networks and data) on more than 1 billion Indians was heavily promoted during India's G20 and may have bolstered this recognition. The AI summit further demonstrates the skill of Indian policy and business leaders at engaging key international fora both to image-build and unlock technology-focused alliances.
Defence and security are core motivators for developing AI strengths and partnerships. China and Pakistan are primary concerns. There is recognition that quantum, hypersonic weapons, and lasers and directed energy are creating new vulnerabilities, and require novel capabilities. Against a background of promised defence reforms, policy voices have also made the case this month that India’s Ministry of Defence (MoD), under the auspices of its Defence Artificial Intelligence Projects Agency (DAIPA), with the Indian Armed Forces, should create Indic-language defence LLMs for use across a range of non-battlefield applications. The government has also acknowledged that the expansion of digital infrastructure has led to a rise in cyber attacks, with AI viewed also as crucial for detecting fraud and mitigating growing cyber vulnerabilities.
Regardless of specific applications, there is a broad sense that India should be an AI heavy-weight, either rivalling global AI leaders or serving as their partner of choice. The genuine novelty of India’s digital infrastructure when compared to other models is a source of self-confidence and inspiration in developing AI. Although riddled with controversies over data protection, competition, and exclusion, advocates argue that the India stack represents a superior online model to others in terms of scalability and regulation—fairer than the US’s and more innovative than the EU’s, while beating China’s on transparency. Why not, then, bring this creativity and scale to AI? It could also serve as a foundation layer for AI use cases, in health, public services, energy, and more, as developers build on top of the digital pubic infrastructure.
Beyond domestic needs, the potential to create an ecosystem of countries that buy Indian AI has caught the attention of policymakers and firms alike—just as aspects of India’s digital infrastructure have been exported to other countries, particularly in the global south. While opinions are split on whether India should develop LLMs or prioritise data and applications (Infosys Chairman and co-founder Nandan Nilekani recently argued that India should focus on becoming a global “use case capital”), at least some Indian firms have committed to development beyond the application layer. Last year, the behemothic Tata Electronics reportedly began exporting semiconductor chip samples from its Bengaluru research and development centre, demonstrating India's interest in playing at various stages of the AI supply chain.
2. Renewable Energy as a Platform for Broader Tech-focused Cooperation
It is not only India’s digital infrastructure that is being heralded as a reason for technology trade and cooperation with the country. India, though responsible for around 8% of global CO2 emissions, is also ranked among the top countries in renewable energy capacity installations, standing at fourth place in 2023, after China, the US, and Germany. As of October 2024, 46.3% of India's energy capacity is installed from renewable sources, totaling 203.18 GW out of 452.69. India's leadership and existing global partnerships in renewable energy development, particularly solar, are being presented as a natural catapult for the development of AI alliances, showcasing India as having the track record and capacity for collaborative public purpose-driven innovation. It appears to be working. The International Solar Alliance (ISA), a global initiative, was launched in 2015 by India and France at the COP21 summit in Paris to promote solar energy as a sustainable solution for energy access. India and France were recently elected as President and Co-President of the International Solar Alliance for 2 years until 2026. Partnership at the AI Summit, though not directly resulting from ISA, emerged against this backdrop of a decade of strategic renewable technology cooperation.
3. Projecting Global Influence through Minilateralism
India, of course, has a long history of building strategic, diversified partnerships. Albeit a rival and occasional foe along its long contest border line, China is currently India’s largest trade partner (just pipping the US to the post). Meanwhile Mr. Modi’s recent working visit to the US showed the US relationship to be continuing apace under Trump, particularly in defence, with expanded US military sales to India from 2025, including F-35 jets, and a new defence framework in the pipeline. India is evidently managing to nurture both relationships.
Amid a floundering international system, New Delhi’s hosting of the G20 Summit in 2023 and its 2022-23 presidency continues to be highly visible across the major cities. G20 signs, paintings, and murals still dominate their streets, symbolically marking India as a leader in global affairs in an age of technological transformation. But it is not only large-scale gatherings keeping Indian diplomats busy. The range and depth of India's minilateral and bilateral technology and broader alliances is notable. There is a deliberateness to Indian minilateralism, a tool of “multi-alignment” in the words of Foreign Minister Jaishankar, that differs from more ad-hoc approaches adopted elsewhere. One such example: while I2U2 (the grouping of India, Israel, the UAE, and the US), launched before October 7th 2023, is continuing in relatively quiet form, the India-Israel Business Forum met last week, emphasising both economic opportunities and a shared purpose to eliminate terrorism. Alliances like the India-Israel partnership demonstrate the convergence of economic and security interests, with initiatives including a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and proposed US-India trade corridor through Israel reportedly gaining pace. India’s traditional non-aligned stance may have equipped it well for the continuous diplomatic manoeuvring demanded by multi-alignment and current geopolitical shifts.
4. India’s Influence as a Geopolitical Swing State
Even spending just a few days in India, the investments made into significantly advancing its critical infrastructure—energy, physical, and digital—over the past decade are clear. Despite facing major climate-related and other challenges, including water scarcity, waste management in some cities (as I found, a walk through many parts of Kolkata is not for the faint-hearted), and air pollution that already hospitalises thousands of Indians annually, such infrastructure advancements are vital for national resilience—something many countries have been slower to grasp.
India's strategic infrastructure investments, coupled with a proactive and innovative approach to foreign policy, are fostering a palpable confidence in its capacity to boost technology-based growth and secure vital energy resources amid global geopolitical and technological shifts. As one of a handful of “geopolitical swing states”, with “agency to chart their own course on an issue-by-issue basis” and with some influence over the international balance of power, this assertiveness is meaningful. India is increasingly well placed to court more dominant states or cooperate with other swing states to create networks around areas of values-alignment or shared needs.