Adani Group Chairman Gautam Adani on Monday said India must build Artificial Intelligence as a tool to empower ordinary citizens, workers and small businesses rather than using technology to replace livelihoods and eliminate jobs.
Addressing the Confederation of Indian Industry's Annual Business Summit 2026 in New Delhi, Adani said India should use AI to expand productivity, generate employment opportunities and help Indian businesses compete globally.
He drew comparisons with the success of the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), saying India's most transformative technological revolutions succeeded because they democratised access and created opportunities at scale.
According to Adani, UPI transformed the economy by increasing trust, improving visibility for small businesses and creating entirely new economic ecosystems.
He said AI now offers India a similar opportunity to develop new industries, business models and employment networks.
However, Adani stressed that India must build the complete AI ecosystem, including reliable energy systems, data centres, compute infrastructure, digital networks, applications and AI-based skilling programmes.
Adani said the AI era would depend not only on technology but also on millions of skilled workers supporting digital infrastructure.
He also warned against relying on foreign-controlled digital systems, describing semiconductors, cloud platforms and data as strategic national assets.
Adani said India must build and own its digital infrastructure instead of relying on foreign ecosystems, stressing that data and AI now hold strategic importance.
He also highlighted the Adani Group's 100-billion-dollar investment in clean energy, digital infrastructure and data centres, alongside partnerships with Google and Microsoft to strengthen India's sovereign compute capacity.
Calling AI the next phase of national development, Adani said India's future strength would depend on its ability to power, compute and innovate independently.