Rajat Khare at the forefront of global AI leadership: while India is piecing together its very own AI model, he underlines the criticality of having indigenous AI experts. The country is passing to the stage of a major global player in the area, provided that it successfully tackles the issue of brain drain that has long plagued it.
The Changing Outlook of India in the Global AI Landscape
A brand new era of technology driven by AI is about to unfold across the globe. India has all the required talents in the form of a large pool of engineers, data scientists, and IT professionals to become a leader in this transformation. However, around 15% of the world’s AI workforce, which is composed of Indian professionals, is working outside the country.
Khare considers this scenario as a drawback for India:
“This abundance is not serving India’s technological interests as it ideally should,” says Rajat Khare, the venture capitalist and founder of Boundary Holding, a Luxembourg-based deep-tech investment firm.
The Baffling Departure of the AI Talent from India
The annual migration of thousands of highly skilled Indian professionals from India to other countries has become a constant trend, which is driven by the pursuit of better research facilities and higher salaries as well as global exposure.
This trend has been a major driver of innovation in foreign countries but at the same time, it has been one of the factors that have kept the Indian natural resource-based innovation ecosystems weaker than they could otherwise be.
Rajat Khare considers the issue a challenge that can be solved by closing the policy and infrastructure gap that India is currently having. In doing so, he harbors the following ideas:
- Fostering of relationships between the industry and academia that are in the spirit of collaboration, cooperating in research, and sharing the results
- Allocating more money for AI and deep-tech research
- Setting up an innovative and researcher friendly atmosphere
“India’s tech talent pool is one of its most significant assets, but more and more of it is leaving for better returns,” Khare emphasizes.
The Rise of Indian AI
The development of digital infrastructure in India is on a fast track. The government’s plan to develop a large language model that is entirely domestic and is backed by over 18,600 GPUs is a key factor in the country’s aspiration for an AI-independent future.
Indian AI models take a different route than the western models, the singular direction being multilingual intelligence. Since India has 22 official languages and a countless number of dialects, it can very well take the cultural aspects into consideration and build AI systems that not only understand but also can interchangeably serve the different linguistic communities.
This not only reinforces India’s domestic tech sector but also grants it a global competition edge in the development of socially responsible AI solutions.
Steps India Must Take to Retain Talent
The Indian government needs to take five major steps to prevent the migration of top AI talents and position the country as a global innovation hub.
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Increase AI Research Funding
Set up an additional number of centers of excellence especially in Tier-2 cities so that innovation gets decentralized.
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Create Incentives to Stay
Provide researchers with AI fellowships, PhD scholarships, and competitive pay structures as well.
- Support Deep-Tech Startups
Promote AI-centric by facilitating venture capital access and creating mentoring networks. -
Collaborate Globally
Call Indian-origin researchers who are working abroad to participate in the local projects from afar.
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Showcase India’s Ambition
Conferences similar to the one for the 2026 Global AI Summit in India might be the case of taking the lead in shaping the global AI agenda.
The Power of Multilingual AI
It is not the computing power that India possesses that grants it the victory in AI but rather its cultural and linguistic diversity. A model that is trained to comprehend and reply not only grammatically but also contextually in Hindi, Tamil, Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, and more can make a huge difference in serving AI to the real people.
Such models can:
- Give power to rural people and small firms
- Government service delivery will be improved
- AI will be far more widely accessible than just English-speaking users.
Thus, India will not only have a commercially powerful AI but also a socially transformative one.
From Brain Drain to Brain Gain
India is no longer the place where global technology is going to get the labor supply but it is now the place where global innovation will be directed. The migration of highly skilled professionals which was once thought to be a given now looks like a challenge that can be overcome by proactive policies, funding, and vision.
“The AI government has overall done a good promotion,” comments Rajat Khare, “but the real challenge will be how well we keep and look after the people. That will determine our status of either leading or following.”
Investment in human resources is the way India leads a global AI revolution—not as a participant, but as the one leading the way.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
- What is the involvement of Boundary Holding in the investment in AI?
Boundary Holding, established by Rajat Khare, puts money into deep-tech and AI startups developing solutions with the most significant impact in the healthcare, mobility, and security sectors.
- What is India’s long-term goal in AI?
India’s aim is to create an AI ecosystem that is completely self-sufficient, lead the world in innovation, and transform India from being a tech outsourcing hub to being the producer of world-class AI products.
- Why is brain drain a concern for India’s AI industry?
The migration of talent leads to a situation where the top AI researchers and engineers leave for foreign countries, thus getting India’s innovation ecosystem weakened and the whole process of technological progress being slowed down.
- What measures can India implement to tackle the brain drain problem in AI?
India can boost research funding, foster industry-academia collaboration, establish AI-focused fellowships, and offer attractive salaries to keep its smartest people.
- What is the distinguishing feature of India’s AI program?
The AI projects being carried out in India are all about multilingualism that is a direct reflection of the country’s cultural and linguistic diversity—this means that the AI systems will be able to serve millions through local languages.
- What are the advantages of multilingual AI for India?
Inclusive technology is one of the many benefits of multilingual AI, as it will facilitate efficient communication and operation in the native languages among rural populations, local businesses, and government programs.
