No reason for India to slow AI push, focus is on applications: IT ministry

India sees no reason to slow down its artificial intelligence efforts, as much of the work here is focused on developing applications tailored to the needs of its people, IT Ministry sources said on Monday, drawing a distinction from the global calls for a pause on AI that are largely targeting frontier models.

The government is concerned about issues related to AI safety, the sources said, adding that the obligation to report such incidents to authorities, exists today.

To a question on whether the mechanism for incident notification would now be tightened in the wake of recent cases of AI agents autonomously taking actions beyond their intended tasks, the sources said, "Cybersecurity threat and cyber incidents include an incident of this nature. As it is, an obligation to report exists. We will have to tighten the norms, timeframe and content of the reporting, we are already doing that." The position assumes significance as concerns have intensified after researchers and safety experts at leading AI companies, including OpenAI and Anthropic, recently went public with stark warnings about the potential risks from increasingly powerful frontier models, with some raising the spectre of catastrophic consequences for humanity from AI risks.

 

The US has opposed calls for a halt though, with the Donald Trump administration arguing that slowing AI development could undermine US leadership and hand an edge to China.

AI-related issues are expected to figure prominently alongside trade, tariffs and other economic matters when Chinese President Xi Jinping visits Washington later this week for summit talks with his US counterpart Trump.

Asked whether India is considering slowing the pace of AI, given the global alarm, the IT Ministry sources said: "We are not at the frontier end of it, so there is no reason we should pause any of our research. The issue is coming up with frontier models." India's intention, right from the beginning, is not necessarily to build frontier models but applications and models that can work for its people, sources said.

"Of course, we are concerned about safety issues but it doesn't mean we have to do that...I don't there is a need to pause," the sources added.

The relentless march of Artificial Intelligence has triggered a global chatter over how to harness its economic and societal benefits while containing risks ranging from deepfakes, misinformation and fraud to privacy breaches, potential misuse of increasingly powerful AI systems, and AI agents bypassing human mandate.

In India, the government is working with industry to find the right regulatory approach to keep artificial intelligence safe and protect citizens online, IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw had said on Thursday, asserting that AI's complex user-safety dimension makes regulation necessary even as the technology brings significant benefits.

"Whenever a new technology comes, that new technology brings many positives, but it also carries several risks. That is why regulation always plays a role in every new technology. And that regulation is primarily about user safety," Vaishnaw had said.

In the case of AI, the user safety dimension is very large, Vaishnaw said, describing AI safety as a very complex issue.

"In the case of AI, that user-safety dimension is very big because, unlike physical technologies, for example, nuclear, which is a very physical technology, there the imagination of how to be safe is much easier compared to the imagination of how to keep AI safe... that is why it is a very complex thing," Vaishnaw had said.

The Minister further said the government is working with the industry to find the right way of regulating, the right way of keeping AI safe, and the right way of keeping citizens safe in the online world.