New Delhi, Oct. 4 -- The global artificial intelligence (AI) race has heightened economic and job market anxieties in India. And rightly so. While some industries may grow and create jobs as a result of AI diffusion, it's now clear that not all will win.

Recent Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data shows that India's software-product exports are shrinking while its information technology (IT) services are not. Exports of software products declined by about 6% in 2025-26 over the previous fiscal year, while IT service exports grew by almost 12%.

The question for India is: where to place its bets? The complexity of the AI stack makes this harder. Policymakers must think simultaneously about chips, data centres, AI models, applications and the ...