NASSCOM Claims AI Adoption Could Add $500 Billion To India's GDP By 2025

As per a report by the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) on June 24, the integrated adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and data utilization strategy in India can add $500 billion to the country's GDP by 2025.

The IT industry body launched an 'AI Adoption Index' for India, and it provides an assessment of the AI adoption trends in four important sectors- Banking and Finance Services, Consumer Packed Goods (CPG) and Retail, Healthcare, and Industrial and Automotive. These sectors could contribute about 60 per cent of AI's potential value-addition of $450-500 billion to the country's GDP by 2025.

What Did NASSCOM Say

In a report by The Economic Times, Debjani Ghosh, the President of NASSCOM, said, "AI's ability to transition from technology potential to technology impacts its true value." He added that the Covid-19 pandemic made it crucial for organizations to move from data and technology silos and build specialized AI capabilities at scale across sectors, combined with a structured data utilization strategy.

According to the NASSCOM report, global investments in AI have doubled over the last few years. Investments have gone from $36 billion in 2020 to $77 billion in 2021. In India, even though the current rate of investments in AI stands at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 30.8 per cent and is on its way to reaching $881 million by 2023, it will only represent 2.5 per cent of the total global AI investments of $340 billion.

This creates a massive opportunity for enterprises in India to accelerate their investments and adopt AI. If India wants to achieve its $5-trillion GDP goal by the fiscal year 2027, it has to draw a strong correlation to the maturity of AI adoption.

According to the report, around 65 per cent of the organizations have defined an AI strategy, either at a functional or enterprise level.

India's Potential

With a burgeoning number of STEM graduates and digital natives, India is one of the biggest talent hubs for AI. India is currently the second-largest global hub in training and hiring AI talent, which is further accelerated by the rapid growth in AI applications.

The NASSCOM report stated, "However, rapid growth in AI applications has led to a surge in hiring for AI professionals." It further stated that while the talent pipeline has grown in the past two years, there has been a supply and demand gap because of the rapid jump in talent.

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