AI Anxiety Can Turn Into an Advantage for Atmanirbhar India | Indian Express Analysis

Science & Technology | Economy

Date: 2 March 2026  |  Source: The Indian Express (From Plate to Plough, Ashok Gulati), 2 March 2026

Tags: AI, Delhi Declaration, Creative Destruction, Atmanirbhar Bharat, AgriStack, CUET GK

The AI Impact Summit in India led to the Delhi Declaration endorsed by 91 countries. Understand India’s AI strategy, creative destruction theory, and agricultural AI for CUET/AILET prep.

The AI Impact Summit held in India became a landmark event, despite a few embarrassing episodes — the “robodog” goof-up by Galgotias University and a “shirtless” demonstration by misguided youths. The summit was ultimately successful in placing India at the centre of the global AI conversation. A key outcome was the endorsement of the Delhi Declaration by 91 countries and international organisations, committing to use AI for the global good — sarvajana hitaya and sarvajana sukhaya (welfare for all and happiness for all).

Artificial Intelligence is no longer a future technology — it is reshaping industries, economies, and geopolitics today. Three fundamental questions dominate global policy discussions on AI:

• Will AI lead to faster economic growth?
• Will it create more jobs or take away existing ones?
• Will its benefits be equally distributed across societies?

The answers to the first question have been largely positive — AI is expected to significantly accelerate overall development. However, the debate on jobs and distribution remains contentious. The IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva highlighted the risk of AI-linked job losses and likened the arrival of AI to a “tsunami” in the job market, estimating that 40% of jobs in emerging economies and up to 60% in advanced economies are at risk.

The concept of “creative destruction”, introduced by economist Joseph Schumpeter (1942), is central to understanding AI’s impact. Every new technology demolishes the old one but creates massive disruption, while ultimately giving higher efficiency and growth. Just as Indian bank employees once feared computers — and eventually found more jobs in the expanded banking sector — AI is expected to generate new, higher-skilled jobs even as it eliminates older ones.

Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries, asserted that there will be no job losses in the Indian industry as a result of AI induction. This optimism is anchored in India’s demographic advantage and large domestic market.

However, India faces a key challenge: it is estimated to be at least 5 years behind the US and China in AI development. This gap demands urgent investment and policy action. The AI Impact Summit’s report “AI for All”, prepared by BCG and supported by Prosus, highlighted this with a co-chair’s perspective from the agriculture segment.

India’s strength lies in finding low-cost AI solutions for the Global South — countries that cannot afford the massive investments required to develop frontier AI systems. India’s track record speaks for itself: the development of vaccines during COVID-19, the innovative UPI payment system, and ISRO’s Chandrayaan-3 landing on the Moon’s South Pole all demonstrate India’s ability to derive maximum value from technology at minimal cost.

In agriculture — which employs 46% of India’s workforce — AI applications in the agri-food system, logistics, marketing, and processing stages are already underway. The government’s AgriStack initiative aims to build a digital agricultural ecosystem that harnesses AI for farmers. India can aim to be the third global power in AI, after the US and China, leveraging its own models and apps.