Ashwini Vaishnaw Named to TIME’s Most Influential People in AI

A short biography in Vaishnaw magazine said the minister is leading India’s efforts to become “a major player in the world of artificial intelligence”

While Nilekani made it to the list thanks to his non-profit Adbhut India, actor Anil Kapoor also earned a place in the list thanks to a groundbreaking legal victory over the unauthorized use of his image by an AI.

Meanwhile, a number of other Indian-origin CEOs of US tech giants have also made it to the list, including Satya Nadella, Sundar Pichai and Aravind Srinivas

IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has been named among TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world in artificial intelligence (AI) in 2024.

A short biography in Vaishnaw magazine said the minister had led India’s efforts to become “a major player in the world of artificial intelligence.”

“Under Vaishnav’s leadership, the country hopes to become one of the top five nations in manufacturing semiconductors — a key component of modern AI systems — in the next five years. Construction of several factories has begun,” the magazine reported.

The report also highlighted that Vaishnav faces “significant challenges” in realizing India’s AI ambitions as the country’s technology sector “struggles with low private investment in research and development (R&D) and a lack of advanced manufacturing ecosystems.”

It also highlighted that other major hurdles in India’s path to realising its AI dreams include high import duties on electronic components, global competition for resources and the complexity of rapidly modernising its infrastructure.

The list titled “TIME100 Most Influential People in AI 2024” also includes Nandan Nilekani, co-founder of Infosys and architect of Aadhaar, as one of the biggest faces in the emerging technology space.

Nilekani made it to the list with his latest project, Adbhut India, a non-profit collective that aims to create a public infrastructure that enables AI developers to build India-specific products. For example, Adbhut India is developing Indian language datasets and India-specific benchmarks.

Also on the list was actor Anil Kapoor, who gained notoriety for his landmark legal victory last September over the unauthorized use of artificial intelligence to create content featuring his “likeness.”

Meanwhile, many other Indian-origin executives of US tech giants also made it to the list, including Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas, Amazon chief artificial general intelligence scientist Rohit Prasad, and others.

Interestingly, Elon Musk, CEO of social media platform X and artificial intelligence company xAI, was not on the list.

The list comes at a time when India has stepped up its focus on promoting and driving AI adoption through a series of initiatives and policies. The IndiaAI Centre’s ambitious mission aims to boost the country’s computing power, increase access to high-quality datasets and support the country’s AI startup ecosystem through funding.

Due to the growing obsession with AI and regulatory pressure, India is home to over 100 GenAI startups, according to Inc42, which have raised over $600 million between 2019 and 2023.

According to Inc42’s analysis, the GenAI market in India is expected to boom rapidly in the coming years, and its value is expected to exceed $17 billion by 2030.