India’s AI ambitions could face a major setback if the country does not urgently upgrade its engineering workforce, warned Abhishek Singh, MeitY Additional Secretary and CEO of the IndiaAI Mission, during his address at the Bengaluru Tech Summit. Singh cautioned that India’s longstanding strength in software services is being challenged by the rapid rise of AI coding tools from global leaders such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Google. Emphasizing the urgency, he stated, “If we don’t turbocharge our engineers with those AI skills, we run a huge risk and we’ll have a lot to lose.”
Singh stressed that India earned its global reputation as the “tech garage of the world,” but the skill sets required in today’s economy have shifted dramatically toward AI, data science and advanced computing. He noted that even with major national investments in compute capacity and model development, India’s advantage could erode if companies and institutions fail to rapidly adapt. The evolving technological landscape, he suggested, demands a workforce trained not just in traditional programming, but in AI-driven development, machine reasoning and data-centric innovation.
To address these gaps, Singh outlined several initiatives already rolling out under the IndiaAI Mission. These include new fellowship programs spanning engineering, medicine, law and liberal arts—designed to embed AI awareness across disciplines. He also highlighted the expansion of data labs being built through collaborations between MeitY, state governments and industry partners. These hubs aim to train annotators, analysts and data scientists in tier-2 cities, ensuring that AI-related opportunities and capabilities extend beyond major metros.
