Does India need a sovereign LLM

I have been making an argument that we should have one for more than 5 years now. I didn’t agree with Nilekani when he said India doesn’t need to build an LLM.

Some people still seem to think that this is an option. Let me be clear. There is no option. We absolutely and categorically need to have our own LLM. It’s table stakes now.

Don’t believe me?

Ok, do this experiment. Don’t use any AI for the next one week. Do you think you and your business will lose out in the long run?

What about if you can’t use AI for the next month? One year?

Do you think our businesses can survive with no AI access for an year?

I could have made the same argument last year. But the impact would not have been the same. Now we all know the power of AI.

Yeah, I know. Some of you will say that will not happen. Why will they stop access to AI for us?

Really. You have that question in this day and age. In this age of Trump and tariffs? In this age of CEOs deciding when to use AI and what to use AI for.

Or, what if they allow access, but tax our usage different than for their own countries? We have seen this before. We have seen this during industrialization and colonization. We cannot let that happen again.

We need our sovereign LLM.