Can’t afford not investing in AI, could be out of the game permanently, says Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani

AI (artificial intelligence) has been the talk of town ever since generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini and CoPilot gained attention. These AI tools have the potential to assist humans with their day-to-day lives. And companies too have started recognising the benefits of AI and are investing heavily in the space.

According to a survey conducted by EY in July this year, business leaders said that they had already begun seeing returns on their investments in artificial intelligence (AI). The survey also added that Among the 95 percent of senior executives who confirmed their organisations were currently investing in AI, the number of companies investing £10 million or more was expected to nearly double to 30% in the coming year, up from 16%.

Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani also supports investments in AI. In fact, he believes that not investing in AI will actually end up costing more for companies.

Nandan Nilekani on AI investments

Speaking on Nikhil Kamath’s podcast, People by WTF, Nilekani explained how AI is becoming indispensable for businesses and society at large.

Responding to concerns about whether current investments in AI might be a bubble, Nilekani was clear: the risk of not investing in AI far outweighs the potential costs of adoption.

“They can’t afford not to do it,” he said, referencing global companies that spend as much as $50 billion a year on AI infrastructure. Nilekani added that AI represents a “big platform shift,” and businesses that fail to adapt could find themselves permanently sidelined.

The competitive landscape for AI is fierce, especially in the West, where tech giants are racing to dominate this space. Investments in data centres, AI chips, and large-scale research projects are driving AI development forward, bringing down costs and making AI technology more accessible over time.

Power of LLMs in India

During the same podcast, Nilekani also said that he sees massive potential for AI in language processing. Large Language Models (LLMs), a type of AI that can understand, generate, and respond to human language, are particularly powerful in India’s multilingual context. Nilekani explained how these models could help bridge communication gaps by providing access to information in local languages.

For instance, Nilekani highlighted how a farmer in Uttar Pradesh could ask a question in Hindi, and the AI system could retrieve relevant information, such as farming techniques, in real time. This capability, Nilekani argued, could democratise access to global knowledge and make it available to people in their native tongues.

“If you can speak in your language of choice, your mother tongue, then suddenly you can access the entire knowledge in the system,” Nilekani said, underscoring how AI could empower individuals who may not be literate or familiar with English.