India’s knowledge base and entrepreneurial action are  its key strength in the global Artificial Intelligence (AI) arena, but the country lags behind other economies when it comes to retaining this talent, securing private investments and its intellectual property strengths, according to recent Stanford Artificial Intelligence (AI) Index 2025.

The AI Index report pegs India at the top when it comes to ‘AI hiring vibrancy.’

India, it says, experienced the highest growth in AI talent recruitment relative to the overall hiring rates. In 2024, the countries with the greatest relative AI hiring rates year-over-year were India (33.4%), followed by Brazil (30.8%) and Saudi Arabia (28.7%). The ‘relative AI hiring rate’ is the year-over-year change in AI hiring relative to the overall hiring in the same country.

Similarly, Stanford University’s report also put India’s AI skills in the top two worldwide. For the period from 2015 to 2024, the countries with the highest AI skill penetration rates were the US (2.6), India (2.5), the UK (1.4), Germany (1.3), and Brazil (1.3). This metric indicates the prevalence of AI skills across occupations.

However, India ranks poorly when it comes to retaining its AI talent, as per the ‘Net AI talent migration’ metric of the Stanford report. India’s score on this metric is -1.55, indicating that on a net basis, the country loses 2 AI talents for every 10,000 LinkedIn members.

The report uses LinkedIn data to identify net gainers/losers of AI talent due to migration. A positive net AI talent migration figure indicates more talent is coming into the country than departing, and a negative metric indicates a loss of talent. Countries with rising AI talent flows include the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Luxembourg.

When looking at private investment in AI from 2013 to 2024, India is at the seventh spot globally, having attracted only around $11.3 billion in the 10 years, compared to a whopping $471 billion in the US, which is at the first spot. China, UK, Canada, Israel, and Germany are before India in the rankings. However, when it comes to the newly funded AI companies in 2024, India moves up to the fourth spot, with 74 AI companies attracting funding in 2024.

The report highlights India’s IndiaAI Mission, with a $1.25 billion investment among the key global policy initiatives for AI development. However, there seems to be a dip in public optimism around AI in India. When asked if ‘AI products and services have more benefits than drawbacks,’ 62% of Indian respondents agreed in 2024- a decline of 9 percentage points from 2022.

As part of the report, Stanford also publishes the Global AI Vibrancy Ranking, and for 2023 (the most recent analysis), India stood at fourth rank worldwide in AI vibrancy measured across parameters. While it scores higher on aspects like public opinion of AI, diversity of its AI workforce (more women with AI skills than men) and R&D efforts, it is pushed back in rankings in aspects like AI infrastructure, policy and governance around AI, and AI educational curriculum.

Overall, the eighth edition of Stanford’s AI Index notes that corporate investment in AI has rebounded, and the number of newly funded generative AI startups nearly tripled in 2024. “AI has moved from the margins to become a central driver of business value. Governments, too, are ramping up their involvement,” the report notes.

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Published on April 14, 2025