96 pc of Indian policymakers advancing sovereign AI strategy: Report

New Delhi: India is emerging as a distinctive sovereign AI market, where regulation, innovation and national digital public infrastructure are closely linked, and 96 per cent of policymakers are advancing a strategy in this field, a report said on Tuesday.

The report from Dell Technologies said 97.7 per cent of government leaders expressed confidence in agentic AI as an adoption accelerator, with 44.4 per cent believing it will play a major role well above the Asia Pacific average of 36.9 per cent.

Nearly 53.3 per cent of respondents supported adoption with robust governance guardrails in place.

India’s government leaders show stronger confidence in agentic AI than the Asia Pacific average, with organisations moving from proof of concept towards investment.

However, to scale ambition of a distinctive Sovereign AI market, India will need to address two critical barriers: specialist AI talent and cybersecurity resilience.

Over 92 per cent of government leaders identified the need for specialised digital talent as a priority area, with network management and integration, AIOps, and sovereign data governance among the most in-demand competencies.

Strengthening cybersecurity posture (cited by 36 per cent) and navigating cross-jurisdictional regulatory frameworks (34 per cent) are identified as the key areas requiring focused attention as adoption scales.

“India has built something truly pioneering; a digital public infrastructure that functions as both a governance framework and an innovation platform,” said Manish Gupta, President and Managing Director, Dell Technologies India.

India has taken a distinctive approach to AI sovereignty – operationalising it through proven national digital public infrastructure platforms such as Aadhaar, UPI, ONDC, and Bhashini. This embeds governance, data stewardship, and trust by design into the fabric of national operations.

Nearly 73.3 per cent of respondents found Sovereign AI as essential for protecting sensitive national data and ensuring local regulatory compliance, a foundational concern for any government handling citizen data at a country-wide scale.

However, the ambition extends beyond data protection, with 70 per cent viewing Sovereign AI investment as a strategic hedge against geopolitical risk and supply chain disruption.

IANS