Ashwini Vaishnaw Pushes Back Against IMF Chief’s ‘Second-Tier AI’ Tag for India

Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw on Monday pushed back against a remark attributed to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief that placed India in a “second-tier” category among global artificial intelligence powers, saying the classification did not reflect available international assessments.

Speaking during a discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Vaishnaw questioned the basis of the IMF’s categorisation and pointed to independent global rankings that place India among the top AI-ready countries.

“I don’t know what the IMF criteria is but Stanford places India at third in the world for AI preparedness,” Vaishnaw said. “I don’t think your classification is right.”

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Vaishnaw Cites Global Rankings, Outlines India’s AI Ecosystem

Vaishnaw said India should be viewed as part of the leading group of AI nations, rather than a secondary tier, based on its scale of talent, deployment and ecosystem development.

“India is clearly in the first group,” Vaishnaw said, adding that global assessments reflect India’s growing role across the artificial intelligence value chain. He noted that international rankings place India highly in areas such as AI talent and adoption.

“Stanford places India as third in terms of AI penetration, in terms of AI preparedness, and in terms of AI talent… Actually on AI talent, it is number two,” he said.

Vaishnaw also outlined India’s approach to building AI capabilities across multiple layers, including applications, models, computing infrastructure and energy. “We are building the entire stack, application layer, model layer, chip layer, infrastructure layer and energy layer,” he said.

The remarks come as India steps up efforts to position itself as a key global hub for artificial intelligence development and deployment, alongside ongoing investments in digital infrastructure and semiconductor manufacturing.

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