India Must Chart Its Own Course on AI Amid US-China Rivalry, Experts Say
Over the past few weeks, two governments have revealed starkly different approaches to artificial intelligence. Beijing restricted overseas travel for top AI engineers from private firms like DeepSeek and Alibaba. Washington issued a directive to Anthropic to suspend its frontier models for foreign nationals, including its own employees. A commercial product used by millions of people was pulled off the shelf. One country treated software engineers like nuclear physicists; the other treated a software product like a munition. Both policy actions stem from the same underlying narrative about what AI is.
National security thinking in the United States and China treats AI as a zero-sum arms race or a weapon of mass destruction to be contained through non-proliferation. This narrative has been promoted by frontier labs to gain market share and shape the regulatory landscape. Other policy instruments, such as export controls and hardware tracking of chips, also flow from this framing. The rhetoric makes coercion feel like prudence.
For a middle power like India, the challenge is to avoid being caught in this binary competition. Experts argue that the appropriate response is to lean into AI as a general-purpose technology while acknowledging the geopolitical innovation race. Instead of treating AI solely as a national security threat, India should focus on its transformative potential for economic growth, healthcare, education, and governance.
India's approach must be pragmatic. It can draw on its strengths in software services, a large pool of technical talent, and a growing startup ecosystem. By investing in AI research, fostering public-private partnerships, and adopting a flexible regulatory framework, India can harness AI for inclusive development. At the same time, it must remain vigilant about risks such as data privacy, algorithmic bias, and job displacement.
The arms race mindset between the US and China is outdated and counterproductive, analysts say. It stifles international collaboration, drives up costs, and diverts attention from addressing global challenges like climate change and pandemics. India has an opportunity to champion a more cooperative and human-centric vision for AI governance, one that balances innovation with ethical safeguards.
Ultimately, India's strategy should not be to pick sides but to carve its own path. By engaging with multiple partners, investing in homegrown capabilities, and prioritizing the public good, India can turn the AI race from a threat into an opportunity.
