Indian AI talent and founders need to ‘wake up’: Google DeepMind’s Manish Gupta

India is far behind China and the US in research and innovation, said Google DeepMind senior director Manish Gupta, and called on Indian AI talent and founders to seize opportunities in the sector.

“India’s private industry needs to wake up and start investing in research — so that we can be makers of these technologies, not just consumers,” said Gupta, in a discussion with ETtech's Vaibhavi Khanwalkar at the ET Soonicorns Summit 2025 on Thursday.

Industry leaders at the panel discussed a billion-dollar AI blueprint to help scale Indian startups over the next decade.


Apart from Gupta, Abhishek Nag, head of early stage VC 360 One Asset; Shally Modi, cofounder of digital storytelling platform Pratilipi; Raghunandan G, founder of crossborder fintech platform Zolve; and Arnab Kumar, director of business development for India & South Asia at Uber were a part of the panel.

The panel also discussed how startups today can leverage artificial intelligence to build it from the ground up.

“Getting the first 100 customers has become very easy now. It is the best time to validate the idea from the zero to one phase,” said Pratilipi’s Modi.

Adding to this, Gupta said that talent is not an issue in the Indian startup ecosystem. “We are the ones who are contributing to the technologies in terms of the foundational model. I think what we lack is usually courage. This is what I hope from the founders. We see this in the spacetech segment, which has startups like Agnikul and Pixxel,” he said.