Sam Pitroda: Bharat Summit Reclaims India’s Moral Leadership for a Progressive World

A.: Unlike most other international conferences, the Bharat Summit organized in Hyderabad, on April 25th and 26th, 2025, addressed both the symbolic and substantive global challenges. It was the world's largest gathering of progressive forces, with over 300 international and 1200 national delegates who came to rethink contemporary paradigms and to forge a plan. Three former heads of state, 38 union ministers, 76 MPs/Senators and hundreds of the world's foremost thinkers and practitioners from 100 nations engaged in intense discussions on how they can pose inspiring alternative policies to further Justice--Social, Economic, Political, Ecological & Geopolitical. These were mirrored in both LoP Rahul Gandhi's electrifying speech and the Hyderabad Resolution, which is a blueprint of a better world. LoP Rahul Gandhi has laid the foundations of a NAM 2.0, and the Congress Party has once again reclaimed moral leadership of progressive forces (as Like PM Nehru did through NAM).

What is the significance of commemorating NAM? Is there a reimagining of the role these countries could play in an ever evolving and dynamic global space?

A.: The Bharat Summit was organized on the 70th anniversary of the first African Asian (Bandung) conference, which ended on April 24, 1955. NAM showed the world an ethical path, when the world was split into two warring economic and geopolitical blocs between Democracy and Communism. Today the world is at crossroads., Today the world is undergoing a similar churning between decentralized Democracy with bottom-up development and centralized authoritarian top-down policies and programs. In the process power and profits are valued more than planet and people. India's response cannot be to avoid the real challenges of the planet and people at large related to freedom, justice, poverty, hunger, violence and lot more. Like PM Nehru once did (which is why the world still adore him), India must show the world a better way by emphasizing the values of our freedom struggle rooted in equality, diversity, character and values. That is what the Bharat Summit tried to do. Today, 1500 delegates are convinced of the importance of the Indian way in forging a new world order. That is why over 100 nations (who were convened by an opposition party, which is a remarkable feat) unitedly condemned terrorism in Pahalgam and stood by India. That is a huge diplomatic victory for India.

What steps must India’s government, investors, and founders take to position the country as a global tech leader?

A.: India needs to strategically take advantage of global disruptions and position itself as a desirable destination for all businesses, including tech businesses. For that to happen, what CM Revanth Reddy, Dy CM Bhatti and Industry Minister Sridhar Babu are planning to do through their Telangana Rising plan needs to be emulated. At the Bharat Summit, a Telangana Rising meeting was convened where Telangana’s top ministers and bureaucrats sat with select entrepreneurs, offering single-window solutions for their businesses, including credible solutions. They gave time-bound deadlines and ensured that investments would be people and climate centric. The Telangana leadership treated businesses as partners in nation-building, which is why I am given to understand that after the Bharat Summit, the state has become an attractive investment destination. Contrast this to some other states which are bogged down by onerous red-tapism, rent-seeking, lack of vision and a general unwillingness to experiment with new innovations. Electric vehicle technology, carbon credits, power trading, AI/Deep Tech etc. are innovations that are changing the fortunes of nations. Why shouldn't Indian states be also taking the lead in these? To be a leader in key sectors, we need true Ease of Doing Business, for which a political and bureaucratic mindset shift is needed. I'm glad Telangana is showing the way.

Do you believe India can realistically overtake the US and China in technology leadership? If so, what timeline and strategic shifts would that require.

A. It is entirely possible to overtake the US and China in technology leadership soon but that can happen only with substantial investments, infrastructure and capacity building in higher education, research, development, design, innovations and entrepreneurship. That requires proper political will, proper strategic thinking, focus on national core competence and sustainable science and technology leadership, huge new financial investments and carefully crafted partnerships. It cannot happen if there’s stifling of free thought, lack of scientific temper, tax-terrorism, incoherent policymaking, cuts to higher education funding or disempowerment of students. Once these are redressed, it is totally feasible to achieve global leadership in AI, Biotech, materials, energy, health science, food and digital transformation.

Should India aim to build foundational AI models like GPT or Claude—or focus on applied AI tailored to local problems in healthcare, agriculture, and governance?

A. I feel we have lost a race to build fundamental AI models like GPT due to current lack of political will, powerful processors (CPUs), massive cloud infrastructures, energy and our own data bases. Unfortunately, the real datasets for Indian personal profile and commerce are in the US or China. We have not invested in creating and controlling our own historic data centers. For example, Hindi is the third largest language in the world but has on only around 6% data on the internet. Many prominent Indian languages like Tamil, Bengali, Gujarati, etc. have not had their rich books, magazines, old literature and treasures digitised. To me this is very important in the age of AI.

However, we can surely lead the race for AI implementation and deliver widespread benefits of AI for developments related to education, health, environment, agriculture, construction, governance, etc. For example, in India we have 50 million court cases pending. It takes years, sometimes decades, to get justice. Can we use AI to deliver justice in one year? Can we use AI to deliver universal health care at minimum cost? Can we eliminate poverty and hunger using AI? The key is to use AI to address major national and global challenges and not get stuck with improving productivity, efficiency and profits for the few rich and powerful.

China and the US are investing billions in national AI strategies. What should India’s AI strategy prioritize to avoid falling behind in the global tech race?

A. Indian AI strategy must prioritize on implementation, implementation and implementation to solve the problems of development related to the people and the planet with focus on distributed and decentralized solutions to improve quality of life, education, employment and income of the middle class and the people at the bottom of the pyramid. It is the biggest opportunity in the history of mankind to speed up development and eliminate poverty and hunger in a decade if planned and executed properly.

We are fortunate to have the connectivity that we have achieved in the last 30 years in India. Not too long-ago India had just 2 million telephones for a nation of 750 million people. It used to take ten years to get a new telephone connection. Now with over billion phones we are a nation of connected billion. How do we use this connectivity to take India to the next level of human development with AI is the real challenge. To address this will require special combination of political and technology will, experience, expertise, leadership, vision and ultimately a technology mission to capitalize on this unique once in a Millenium opportunity.

Given recent remarks about India's focus on consumer startups over deep tech, do you think we could have done more in deep tech? If yes, then how?

A. A country of 1.5 billion with the kind of diversity and destiny must address deep tech and consumer start-ups and lot more on multiple fronts at the same time. India must remember that technology is just a tool for problem solving.

I have said for over forty years that “the best brains in the world are solving problems of the rich who really do not have problems to solve. As a results, the problems of the poor do not get the attention it deserves”. The real challenge is not about deep tech or consumer start ups but about the real problems we must solve to assure sustainable and inclusive peace and prosperity to all the people. However, this requires networking of talented, experienced and accomplished people, organizations, institutions and infrastructures to move away from the mindset of command and control to collaboration, cooperation, co-creation and open and honest communication with focus on truth, trust, sacrifice and service to the people at large.