Tech, IT industry run huge risk if they do not turbocharge engineers, says MeitY’s Abhishek Singh

Abhishek Singh, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY)

The technology and information technology (IT) services industry faces a significant risk if it does not rapidly upgrade its engineering talent for the age of artificial intelligence, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) additional secretary Abhishek Singh said.

“The ability to use brain power of Indians to solve world problems that has led to the boom in the IT industry… is facing a challenge from… AI code generators and the AI tools that OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google are making. 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 said at the 28th edition of the Bengaluru Tech Summit on November 19.

Singh said that while India has long been considered the tech garage of the world, the nature of talent requirements is undergoing a fundamental change.

AI, data science, and advanced computing capabilities will be critical for the next phase of global technology development.

Also, read: Doing more with less: AI rewrites the operating model of Indian IT

To address some of these challenges, the IndiaAI Mission, under MeitY, has introduced fellowships for students working on AI projects across disciplines, including engineering, medicine, law, and liberal arts.

Singh said the government is also setting up data labs in partnership with state governments and industry to train data annotators, data analysts, and data scientists in tier 2 cities.

Also, read: IndiaAI Mission to set up over 500 data labs nationwide; AI framework launch within 10 days

To prepare industry and academia for the coming wave of AI adoption, the mission is also building tools for AI safety, including bias testing, ethical certification, deepfake detection, and stress testing.

These tools will be housed within the AIKosh platform.

Singh warned that India’s long-term technology competitiveness depends on how fast the industry enhances its engineering workforce.

Without rapid upskilling, he said, the country risks falling behind even as it expands its compute ecosystem and indigenous model development.

India’s ambitions to build its own large language models (LLMs) are set to advance with Bengaluru-based Sarvam nearing the launch of its foundation model, Singh added during the panel discussion.

“Sarvam is very near to launching their model, and we hope that we will be able to showcase what they have been building at the Impact AI summit in February,” Singh said.

Sarvam is one of twelve foundation model initiatives supported under the India AI Mission, where the government covers one hundred percent of compute requirements.

Also, read: Sarvam likely to roll out India’s first LLM by early next year, 40,000 GPUs to be empanelled by Centre