New Delhi, Sept. 12 -- In my last column, I wrote about a young woman I met on the Vande Bharat from Mysuru to Bengaluru-hunched over her laptop, spending nearly $200 (approximately Rs.17,653) of her Rs.1 lakh salary on ChatGPT Pro just to stay relevant. Her story captured India's invisible export: talent that trains the world's artificial intelligence (AI), at a cost borne first by its own workers.

That story feels even sharper today, because the US now wants to tax the very services built on the backs of workers like her.

On 5 September, Bernie Moreno, a senator from Ohio, introduced the Halting International Relocation of Employment (HIRE) Act, which proposes a 25% tax on outsourcing payments made by US companies to Indian IT firms. ...