India, Feb. 23 -- As artificial intelligence scales across borders, a fundamental question is becoming unavoidable: who controls data flows, and who captures the value they generate?

The global AI race is no longer defined purely by innovation. It is increasingly about governance, sovereignty, compensation, and systemic risk. For countries like India, the stakes are not incremental; they are structural.

History offers a familiar pattern. Industries often scale faster than regulation. Pharmaceuticals operated with limited oversight before safety standards were enforced. Railroads and oil conglomerates expanded aggressively before antitrust frameworks emerged. Regulation did not kill these industries; it stabilised them.

AI appears to be...