Speaking at an event organized by EkStep Foundation in Bangalore, Nairkani said two competing trajectories are emerging in the AI ecosystem globally.
“There’s a race in AI, and there’s a race to the bottom and a race to the top. The race to the bottom is what we mostly see today: AI stock porn, people preying on loneliness and mental health. The race to the top is how do we leverage AI to improve lives? We want to win the race to the top,” he said.
The event showcased voice-based AI use cases and deployments in India across government services, agriculture, financial services, logistics, justice, and corporate operations.
Nairkani emphasized the need for guardrails in AI development, saying the focus should be on responsible systems that work as intended and stay within clear boundaries, rather than extreme fear of superintelligence.
“The AI community is talking about how AI will eliminate jobs and make everyone so productive that they can sit on the beach, put stablecoins in their digital wallets, drink margaritas, and play video games. … These are all grand claims,” he said.
Referring to India’s experience in building digital public infrastructure, Nilekani cited the success of Aadhaar as proof that population-scale systems can be built frugally. “UPI has made more than 20 billion transactions at almost zero cost. Vegetable sellers can sell their produce without paying transaction fees and get paid. That’s what we have to do again — tweak the model, design the chip to fit our needs — and it doesn’t matter how. That’s the game. And you’ll see.” It will happen in a year, and this community will make it happen,” he said, referring to the Unified Payments Interface.
Nairkani also highlighted that voice-based AI is the most practical interface for India and an important step towards digital equity.
“Just as UPI made it easy for everyone to make digital payments, voice-driven interfaces can remove barriers to opportunity for all citizens in agriculture, education and other sectors. Literacy is no longer a barrier,” he said.
Vishal Dhupal, Nvidia’s managing director for South Asia, also spoke at the event and said India is on track to become a global intelligence hub.
“Bengaluru has the potential to become a global hub for intelligence. Not as a cliché, but because we are already playing the game. As we move from practice to the professional league, the canvas gets bigger, we learn the nuances and we get better. The talent and infrastructure will congregate here. We see India having three times the opportunity in the next three to four years,” he said.
With input from TOI
