AI Alliance NCR: Only 10 Indians among 300 globally who can train AI models from scratch, says MeitY's Abhishek Singh

Abhishek Singh, additional secretary of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY)

There are only about 300 people in the world who can train a foundational AI model from scratch and 8-10 of them are Indians, according to a top Indian government official.

"Somebody told me there are only 300 people in the world who can train a foundation model from scratch and 20 of them are Indians. Of course, if we can attract them here, it would be a Bhabha moment", Abhishek Singh, additional secretary of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) said at the Moneycontrol and CNBC TV18 AI Alliance NCR Chapter in Gurugram.

"We have to think of AI as we thought of atomic energy or space research. That time also we were catching up with the West. It was a moonshot. But we were able to attract the best minds and they built something we are proud of," he added.

Singh also said that the government's wants to train people in data analysis and data tagging, particularly from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities.

Moneycontrol recently reported that technology product and IT services companies claim to have trained thousands of employees in artificial intelligence (AI) skills over the past year. However, India finds itself in the midst of a talent shortage in core AI products and services.

Despite the impressive numbers touted by IT services firms, the active pool of senior AI engineers who are actually building core AI products and services in India is less than 2,000, according to data from specialist staffing firm Xpheno, as accessed by Moneycontrol. Core AI products and services encompass AI-based apps, tools, and platforms, among others.

The total active accessible Indian talent with the minimum required skills, experience and exposure to core AI is a little under 21,000, Xpheno said, referring to the segment of upcoming AI engineers.

This is quite a contrast to the 650,000-700,000 people that tech industry body Nasscom claimed are trained on AI across top-tier tech companies.

Cases in point: Tata Consultancy Services recently said it had trained 350,000 employees in AI skills; Infosys said eight out of 10 employees are AI-ready; Accenture is upskilling 250,000 employees in AI; HCLTech has trained 50,000 employees; Microsoft India plans to skill 2 million people in AI by 2025, and IBM has globally committed to train 2 million people in AI by 2026.