What to expect as tech CEOs head to New Delhi

Big technology executives descend on India this week for an AI summit in New Delhi as the world’s largest companies aim to expand their presence in what is seen as a critical growth market.

India this week will host the AI Impact Summit, the latest in a series of government-hosted events focused on artificial intelligence that have taken place in the U.K., South Korea and France.

Among the key attendees are OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai. Anthropic boss Dario Amodei and Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis are also slated to be there. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who was earlier expected to attend, reportedly withdrew on Saturday due to “unforeseen circumstances.”

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will roll out of the red carpet which tech CEOs will happily walk down as the country presents a lucrative market of young, tech-forward consumers and a huge pool of talent which could be key to continued development of AI.

“The summit … is a huge validation of the potential of the market. Everyone’s coming in because they realize that this is the place to be in and India just cannot be ignored,” Lalit Ahuja, CEO of ANSR, a company that helps businesses run offshore teams in India.

The AI Impact Summit also comes amid a reset in relations between India and the U.S. as the two nations push toward a trade deal.

Modi’s government has made its intentions clear in the last few years — it wants India to be one of the world’s tech superpowers. India has approved $18 billion worth of semiconductor projects as it looks to build a domestic supply chain.

The government has pushed major companies, including Apple, to manufacture more of its goods in India.

Venture capital investors are betting on India’s startups while the country’s stock exchanges are seeing a surge in initial public offerings.

Neil Shah, partner at Counterpoint Research said government support for tech “is a red carpet for multinational companies to set up, expand and diversify their global operations.”

And with the door open, major firms are likely to announce big investments this week in India, while New Delhi will talk up the opportunities in the country.

AI, unsurprisingly, is going to be a big focus from three angles: infrastructure, users and talent.

There is likely to be big infrastructure investment deals announced around AI data centers as demand continues to rise and tech companies thirst for more computing power. In December, Amazon, Microsoft and Intel made commitments to building AI infrastructure and chips in India.

India is one of OpenAI’s top markets for ChatGPT and alongside rivals like Perplexity are offering their products for free in a race to gain users and potentially lucrative data for further training.

There is no major domestic rival to these U.S. chatbots, providing a good opportunity to gain users with a tech-savvy user base.

And access to talent is also attractive. India is an “AI talent factory,” Sham Arora, chief technology officer at Tech Mahindra, told CNBC’s “Inside India” last week.

There is an increasing number of so-called Global Capability Centers (GCCs) that are being created in India. These are effectively offshore hubs which are set up on behalf of international companies.

More than 60% of GCCs established in the last 2 years are focused on AI, data, digital engineering, or product development, according to ANSR, which helps companies set up GCCs. More than 80% of GCCs expected to be set up in the next six-to-eight months are projected to be AI-led, ANSR said.

But not only are tech giants looking to India for engineering talent, an increasing number of firms are also banking on the country for senior leadership roles. ANSR’s Ahuja said the role of “chief AI officer” is becoming more common.

“And the fact that there’s talent available … those positions are now being created in India,” Ahuja said.