The hollow hype over India as the ‘AI use case capital of the world’

In February 2023, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called on citizens to “identify 10 problems of the society that can be solved by AI”. In 2024, Nandan Nilekani, the IT czar who has been a driving force behind India’s digital journey over the past 15 years, declared that India would soon become the “AI use case capital of the world”.

In January 2025, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology’s IndiaAI Mission issued a call for proposals to build Indian foundational models, the software that underlies contemporary generative AI development. One of the criteria was “identifying and elaborating use cases that address societal challenges at scale.” And last month, the Gates Foundation and the IndiaAI Mission announced a partnership on “AI solutions for better crops, stronger healthcare, smarter education & climate resilience”.

The discourse of AI use cases for socio-economic development is one of the most distinctive features of India’s AI policy. Its promise is that AI will “solve” difficult problems in classic sites of postcolonial development: agriculture, health, and education. It discursively links socio-economic development in rural India to industrial strategy at the cutting edge of global AI technology.

However, lacking an account of political economy, the “use cases” approach makes for a poor policy programme. Instead, this seductive vision serves as...

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