India is looking to redefine its role in the global technology ecosystem as artificial intelligence begins to transform how software is built and delivered. With automation challenging traditional entry level roles, the country now wants to position itself as a global hub for AI inference and agentic services.
Speaking at an industry body event, Abhishek Singh, Additional Secretary at the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and chief executive of the IndiaAI Mission, said India has a strong opportunity ahead. “We have the potential to become the inferencing capital of the world,” he said, pointing to the country’s large talent base and growing digital infrastructure. His comments come at a time when automation is putting pressure on India’s $250 billion IT services industry.
Singh highlighted the growing challenge faced by young engineers as AI tools become cheaper and more capable. “When our entry level software engineers are competing with $20 bots, how do we position ourselves?” he asked. “How do we ensure that these tools that are available today… are seen as an add on to the coding agents or the human software agents that we have?” He stressed that India must move beyond low cost services and focus on higher value AI driven transformation.
India, long seen as the world’s IT services back office, must now evolve into a provider of advanced AI capabilities, Singh said. “Can we try to ensure that we become the primary country to source services for AI3 transformation? Can we become the prime service providers for agentic AI? Can we become the prime service providers as we move into physical AI?” He also encouraged major Indian technology firms to build their own in-house coding agents instead of relying entirely on global platforms. “Do we rely on Cursor AI or GitHub Copilot? Or should we build our own coding agent?” he said, citing the deep experience of firms such as TCS and Infosys.
Singh added that recent Union Budget 2026 measures, including tax exemptions and simpler safe harbour rules for data centres, are already attracting interest from global cloud players. These steps could help India emerge as a major data centre base while leveraging its AI talent to scale services globally.
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