New Delhi, Jan. 26 -- Within minutes of almost any policy discussion on digital technologies and artificial intelligence (AI) in India, one reference inevitably surfaces: UPI, or the Unified Payments Interface. It has become the default analogy, a governing metaphor and increasingly even a policy instinct. If a state-backed, no-fee payment system could unlock scale and low-cost innovation, the argument goes, why not replicate that model for AI?

This reasoning is flawed. The proposed analogy usually unfolds along familiar lines. AI development demands significant compute infrastructure-most notably high-end graphics processing units (GPUs), dominated today by Nvidia.

These are scarce and largely unaffordable for Indian startups and resea...