Start deepseeking, India, clock's ticking

The AI genie is out of the bottle with a Chinese startup releasing an open-source version, DeepSeek, trained at a fraction of the cost of models under development by US technology giants. This is China's opportunity to crow over the apparent stranglehold Silicon Valley and Wall Street have on AI development. Questions remain on the quality of DeepSeek's output and its computing costs. But investors globally have had a wake-up and smell the Philz Coffee call over innovation in AI. The field has just become enormously wide if DeepSeek's claims on development cost and time are established. Expect a burst of innovation around the world for a truly transformative technology.

The Chinese example also serves as a wake-up call to governments elsewhere, including here in India, to get their AI act together. China has a fairly evolved regulatory structure in place to allow for ethical development of AI. Its technology companies like Baidu and ByteDance have their own LLMs. The country is making its breakthroughs despite a throttled supply of advanced chips needed for the purpose because of sanctions. Beijing is emerging from a position of follower in the AI race. The efficacy of Washington's semiconductor export curbs is questionable.

India needs to move fast to avoid the effects of Chinese advances reinforcing US anti-proliferation efforts. It helps that Indian engineers support US technology innovation. Silicon Valley may have to increase its reliance on them to stay ahead in the race. But India has to ready the regulatory scaffolding and divert capital into developing local LLMs. The country needs an agency - in fact, a ministry, as we have argued before - to build capacity, develop safeguards, allocate computing power and democratise access. Time lost in securing data privacy has to be made up in intensified engagement between tech developers and lawmakers over the ethics of AI. Business processes need to be retooled to incorporate the technology within acceptable levels of job displacement. The clock is ticking.