India sees no reason to pause AI research, says IT Ministry as it plans tighter incident reporting rules

India sees no reason to slow down its artificial intelligence (AI) research, as its efforts are focused on developing applications and models suited to the needs of its people, IT Ministry sources said on Monday. The government, however, is concerned about AI safety and is working to tighten rules on reporting related incidents.

The government's position comes amid growing global concerns about the risks posed by increasingly powerful AI systems, particularly frontier models. While some researchers and safety experts have called for a pause in their development, India believes its focus on applications does not warrant a similar move.

Also Read: Deliveries over deployment: IT firms must reassess AI integration as pricing pressures rise, says BCG


"We are not at the frontier end of it, so there is no reason we should pause any of our research. The issue is coming up with frontier models," the sources said when asked whether India was considering slowing down its AI efforts.

The sources said India's approach from the beginning has been to develop applications and models that can serve its population, rather than necessarily focusing on building frontier models.

AI incident reporting rules may be tightened

The government is also examining the reporting framework for AI-related incidents, including cases in which AI agents act autonomously beyond their intended tasks.

Also Read: Microsoft launches fourth India cloud region in Hyderabad to meet AI demand

Asked whether the mechanism for notifying authorities would be tightened following recent cases, the sources said, "Cybersecurity threat and cyber incidents include an incident of this nature. As it is, an obligation to report exists. We will have to tighten the norms, timeframe and content of the reporting, we are already doing that."

The sources said the government was concerned about safety issues but did not believe that this required India to pause its research.

Global concerns over frontier AI models

Concerns about AI safety have intensified after researchers and safety experts at leading AI companies, including OpenAI and Anthropic, issued warnings about the potential risks associated with increasingly powerful frontier models.

The concerns include the possibility of severe consequences from advanced AI systems, alongside risks such as deepfakes, misinformation, fraud, privacy breaches and the misuse of AI agents.

The United States has opposed calls to halt AI development, with the Donald Trump administration arguing that slowing progress could weaken its leadership in the field and give China an advantage.

AI-related issues are also expected to feature in discussions on trade, tariffs and other economic matters during Chinese President Xi Jinping's planned visit to Washington later this week for summit talks with Trump.

Government working with industry on AI regulation

IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Thursday that the government was working with industry to identify an appropriate regulatory approach to ensure AI safety and protect citizens online.

"Whenever a new technology comes, that new technology brings many positives, but it also carries several risks. That is why regulation always plays a role in every new technology. And that regulation is primarily about user safety," Vaishnaw had said.

He said AI posed a complex user-safety challenge because of the nature of the technology.

"In the case of AI, that user-safety dimension is very big because, unlike physical technologies, for example, nuclear, which is a very physical technology, there the imagination of how to be safe is much easier compared to the imagination of how to keep AI safe... that is why it is a very complex thing," Vaishnaw had said.

The minister said the government was working with the industry to determine how AI should be regulated, how its systems could be kept safe and how citizens could be protected in the online world.