Indian Deeptech Sector Needs More Risk Capital To Leapfrog: Reliance Jio’s Chief AI Scientist

Amid an ongoing debate on why the country’s deeptech ecosystem has fallen behind developed economies like the US and China, Gaurav Aggarwal, the VP and Chief AI Scientist at Reliance Jio, has said that India currently lacks the risk capital needed to support AI development.

Aggarwal was speaking at Inc42’s GenAI Summit held in Bengaluru today. He was joined by Ashwin Raguraman, cofounder & partner at Bharat Innovation Fund; Roopan Aulakh, MD at pi Ventures; and Chinnu Senthilkumar, managing partner at Exfinity Venture Partners.

“We don’t have the right policies in place to leapfrog in AI development. Extending the risk capital is the type of capital for the deeptech we need. If you look at the kind of capital that has gone into the deeptech ecosystem of the US or China, India has not got any exposure to that kind of capital,” Aggarwal added. 

He added that while India holds vast and valuable datasets, the real challenge lies in putting them to use — similar to what the country faced while building the UPI framework.

“Besides my role at Reliance, I am also a volunteer at iSpirit. What we are currently doing is developing a Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) for AI startups to make sharing of data, or data collaboration, easy. It is in very early stages but the challenge now is the same as it was during UPI’s development: how to engage as many stakeholders from the deeptech ecosystem as possible,” Aggarwal said. 

Can Govt Become The Largest Buyer of India’s AI Innovation?

With commerce minister Piyush Goyal questioning India’s deeptech prowess, comparing it with China’s advancements, many stakeholders have pointed out that the government itself could be the biggest beneficiary of products emerging from India’s deeptech innovation.

Reliance’s chief AI scientist has raised questions about the adoption of AI and SaaS applications developed by Indian startups and developers within government departments.

“Do we say a Zoho app or any good Indian deeptech product being used by the government ? The answer is No,” he added. 

Meanwhile, echoing the sentiment, Senthilkumar of Exfinity Venture Partners said the government could become the biggest consumer of Indian AI products in areas like legal, digitisation of complex court documents, passport services, and public healthcare.

Bharat Innovation Fund’s Raguraman pointed out that while the government has launched a platform under the National AI Mission, startups and innovators continue to face regulatory hurdles, tax burdens, and compliance issues, which often act as roadblocks to innovation.

“The UPI moment for AI is upon us, We already have digital backbone but would need a holistic participation from enterprises, the government and startups to leapfrog into next phase of growth,” Raguraman concluded.