Abhijit Bhaduri

Day: April 13, 2025

  • India will be the AI Use Case Capital of the World — Here’s Why

    India will be the AI Use Case Capital of the World — Here’s Why

    INDIA_AI Use Capital with frugal innovation

    AI Inferences in $0.01 or Rs1

    In a world racing to harness artificial intelligence, India is quietly positioning itself not just as a participant but as the global capital for AI use cases. With its unique combination of massive digital infrastructure, a billion-strong user base, and entrepreneurial energy, India offers the perfect ecosystem for AI innovation at unprecedented scale.

    The Foundation: Digital Public Infrastructure Meets AI

    India’s digital public infrastructure (DPI) provides the ideal foundation for AI applications to thrive. This robust ecosystem includes:

    • Aadhaar: The world’s largest biometric ID system covering 1.3+ billion people
    • UPI: A real-time payment system processing billions of transactions monthly
    • India Stack: Open APIs enabling paperless, presence-less, and cashless service delivery

    As Nandan Nilekani, Infosys co-founder and architect of India’s digital transformation, points out: “India’s digital foundation will power AI in unprecedented ways. While others focus on building large models, India is uniquely positioned to deploy AI at scale to solve real-world problems.”

    The Scale: A Billion Digital Citizens

    With over 806 million internet users (projected to exceed 900 million by the end of 2025), India offers an unmatched testbed for AI applications:

    • Rural Digital Adoption: The majority of new internet users now come from rural areas
    • Mobile-First Economy: Over 1.12 billion mobile connections power digital interactions
    • Multilingual User Base: Digital interfaces supporting 22+ Indian languages

    This scale creates a virtuous cycle: AI solutions built for India must work for diverse populations, varying literacy levels, multiple languages, and resource-constrained environments—making them inherently robust and globally applicable. Read the report by Stanford Human AI lab

    The Opportunity: Solving Real Problems at Scale

    Unlike AI development in more mature markets that often focuses on incremental efficiency gains, India’s AI landscape targets fundamental challenges:

    Healthcare

    AI-powered diagnostic tools are helping bridge the severe doctor shortage in rural areas. For example, startups are using AI for early detection of diabetic retinopathy and tuberculosis through smartphone cameras, potentially saving millions from preventable blindness and disease progression.

    Agriculture

    With 43% of India’s workforce engaged in agriculture, AI applications are transforming farming practices. Predictive models combining weather data, soil conditions, and crop history help farmers make better decisions, increasing yields by 15-30% in pilot programs.

    Financial Inclusion

    AI-driven credit scoring models analyze alternative data points (like digital payment histories from UPI) to extend loans to previously “unbanked” populations with no credit history. This has enabled micro-lending to millions of small businesses previously excluded from the formal financial system.

    Education

    Adaptive learning platforms using AI are personalizing education in regional languages, addressing the severe teacher shortage in rural schools. These platforms dynamically adjust difficulty levels based on student performance, dramatically improving learning outcomes.

    The Advantage: Frugal Innovation

    India’s approach to AI is characterized by frugal innovation—creating more value with fewer resources. This leads to:

    • Cost-Effective Solutions: AI applications developed for the Indian market must be affordable at scale
    • Resource Efficiency: Models optimized to run on entry-level smartphones and limited bandwidth
    • Localized Intelligence: AI trained on diverse Indian languages and cultural contexts

    For example, voice-based AI interfaces in local languages allow even illiterate users to access digital services, a necessity in a country with 22 official languages and varying literacy rates.

    INDIA_AI Use Capital with frugal innovation
    INDIA_AI Use Capital with frugal innovation

    The Future: One Million Startups by 2035

    Nilekani envisions India hosting one million startups by 2035, many leveraging AI technologies to address local and global challenges. This entrepreneurial explosion is supported by:

    • Open Data Repositories: Government initiatives making crucial datasets available for AI training
    • API Economy: Public and private sector APIs enabling easy integration of AI capabilities
    • Talent Pool: India produces 1.5 million engineering graduates annually, increasingly specializing in AI/ML

    The Global Impact: From India to the World

    Solutions developed for India’s complex environment can scale globally, especially to emerging markets with similar challenges. We’re already seeing this happen:

    • India’s UPI payment system is being adopted or emulated in countries like Singapore, UAE, and several African nations
    • Healthcare AI applications developed for resource-constrained Indian hospitals are finding markets across Southeast Asia and Africa
    • Language models trained on India’s diverse linguistic landscape are proving valuable for other multilingual societies

    It will happen despite challenges

    While India’s AI journey isn’t without challenges—including data privacy concerns, cybersecurity threats, and digital divides—the country’s focus on narrow, high-impact AI use cases provides a pragmatic path forward.

    As Nilekani highlights: “Indians need not lose sleep over developing large AI models like China’s DeepSeek. Our strength lies in applying AI to solve real problems for real people.”

    India: The Perfect AI Lab

    India represents perhaps the world’s most exciting AI laboratory—where cutting-edge technology meets real-world complexity at unprecedented scale. By combining its digital public infrastructure with entrepreneurial energy and focusing on practical applications rather than theoretical capabilities, India is creating an AI ecosystem that solves meaningful problems.

    In this ecosystem, AI isn’t just a technology for enhancing existing services—it’s a transformative force making essential services accessible to hundreds of millions for the first time. That’s why India will be the AI use case capital of the world.

    As the global AI landscape evolves, watch India not just for the models it builds, but for how it puts AI to work for a billion people. The sketchnote I made is a summary of Nandan’s talk. But he does a much better job!

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    Connect with me on e-mail
  • Book Review: People Powered Startups

    Book Review: People Powered Startups

    If a founder believes that HR is for administrative tasks, please gift him/her this book

    People Powered Startups by Saurabh Nigam

    Let me say it upfront—People-Powered Startups by Saurabh Nigam is a must-read for every founder, early-stage leader, and even HR folks building something from the ground up. It’s not often you come across an HR book that speaks the language of startup founders, understands the chaos of early-stage teams, and still manages to offer structure without sounding preachy. This one does. Saurabh has worked in startups and this book is full of ideas that are implementable.

    Saurabh brings over 15 years of HR leadership experience and distills it into one very readable, very usable book. Whether you’re still figuring out how to make your first few hires or scaling after Series A, this book will help you avoid mistakes that are easy to make—and expensive to fix.

    Startup founders underinvest in HR because their understanding of HR is often patchy and primitive. They will often tell you that they see themselves as the HR function, dissuade them gently. If someone says I brush my teet twice a day, and I am qualified to do root canal on myself … dissuade them gently!

    Not having a diverse employee base can slow down innovation. Startup founders over index on people like themselves – people from their college or town. I have seen a startup founder unable to fire the product manager because they shared the same hostel and did not muster up the courage to give the PM that feedback.

    The Heart of the Book: 20 HR Mistakes That Can Derail a Startup

    One of the most powerful sections in the book is the detailed breakdown of 20 HR mistakes that startups often make. Some of these might seem obvious (like “Neglecting HR from Day One”), but Saurabh goes beyond the surface. He shows how seemingly small oversights—like misclassifying employees as contractors, not documenting performance issues, or hiring based solely on gut feel—can snowball into major cultural and legal headaches.

    What I appreciated most was how practical and example-rich the book is. For instance, when he talks about the importance of onboarding, he doesn’t just say “do it well”—he outlines what good onboarding looks like and how to scale it. When he talks about the cost of ignoring toxic behavior, he backs it up with a real case study. This book doesn’t just tell you what to fix—it gives you the playbook to fix it.

    We No HR We Are Bootstrapped

    Chapter 23 deserves a special mention. That has to be my favorite chapter. It tackles the myths that are common to come across.

    • “HR is only for big companies.”
    • “Culture fit matters more than skills.”
    • “Performance reviews are a waste of time.”
    • “You don’t need an employee handbook with a small team.”

    I’ve heard founders say (sometimes proudly) all these, and Saurabh does a great job explaining why these beliefs are not only misguided, but harmful.

    HR isn’t a luxury—is necessary for growing the organization. It must also grow and expand as the organization grows in complexity. Just like you wouldn’t run a company without finance or product, you shouldn’t treat HR as optional.

    Even if you don’t have a full-time HR leader, there are fractional CHROs, software tools, and external consultants who can help you build people practices that grow with your startup.

    What I Loved

    • The templates and checklists: These are gold. Sometimes as a founder, you don’t even know what questions to ask. This book gives you that clarity.
    • The tone: It’s mature, constructive, and very startup-aware. Saurabh doesn’t try to make HR sound cool. He makes it sound essential—and that’s way more powerful.
    • The call to action: This isn’t a “read and reflect” book—it’s a “read and act” book.

    A Bit of Feedback

    If there’s one area where I think the book could be even stronger, it’s in the choice of examples. Many of the case studies and success stories come from global giants like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon. While those are undeniably great models of HR excellence, I would’ve loved to see more Indian startup stories. Companies like Zerodha, Zomato, Freshworks, Swiggy, and others have gone through the same struggles and come out stronger because of their people choices. Saurabh does mention a few of them early on—but more consistent integration of Indian startup journeys would’ve made the insights even more relatable for our context.

    That said, the book remains an absolute gem. It’s not about making HR flashy. It’s about making it foundational.

    If you’re building something—whether you’re employee #1 or #100—People-Powered Startups should be on your desk. Or better yet, as you are convincing your classmates in college to join your startup.

    Because in a world obsessed with product-market fit, we can’t afford to forget about people–culture fit. Leave me a comment and tell me what you think.

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