Microsoft’s Xbox division has already laid off more than 2,000 employees, a sign of the broader transformation underway in game development, Andolfatto said. As AI tools become more integrated into production workflows, he explained, studios are reassessing their financial models and reducing reliance on large development teams.

Micron Technology MU on Monday raised its forecast for fourth-quarter revenue and adjusted profit, due to surging demand for its memory chips used in artificial intelligence infrastructure, sending its shares up 5% before the bell.

The company now expects revenue of $11.2 billion, plus or minus $100 million, compared with its previous forecast of $10.7 billion, plus or minus $300 million.

It expects adjusted earnings per share of $2.85, plus or minus 7 cents, compared with its earlier expectation of $2.50, plus or minus 15 cents.

Semiconductor makers such as Micron have seen a surge in orders for their high-bandwidth memory chips due to their intensive data-processing capabilities, as large tech firms scaled up their financial commitments to AI data centers.

AIM presents its annual compilation of the most influential leaders in AI in India for 2025, a carefully curated list of individuals who are helping shape the future of artificial intelligence in India. This year’s selection brings together a wide mix of voices: scientists and researchers, startup founders, tech veterans, policymakers, public sector leaders and storytellers who’ve played a key role in how India thinks about and uses AI.

From diving into sovereign LLMs, IndiaAI Mission and digital transactions to quantum and chip research, agentic AI, film and music, these leaders have stood out not just for what they’ve built or led, but for how they’ve put AI on the national agenda.

While some have pushed the boundaries of deeptech innovation, others have worked to bring AI into critical areas like healthcare, education, governance or agriculture. Many have had to wrestle with tough questions about fairness, accountability, privacy and the role of automation in everyday life. Their responses have helped move the conversation forward.

India’s AI journey is still unfolding, but it’s being shaped every day by people like the ones on this list. These individuals are asking the right questions, building with purpose and leading in ways that matter.

(In alphabetic order within the category)

Policy Makers

Aakrit Vaish has been a key figure in India’s AI ecosystem for over a decade. He co-founded Haptik, the country’s first conversational AI company, which was acquired by Reliance Jio in 2019, marking the country’s largest AI exit valued at $100 million. As an advisor to the IndiaAI Mission led by the Indian government, he played a central role in shaping the nation’s sovereign large language model initiative.

In 2022, Vaish launched Peercheque, a venture syndicate that now includes 65 co-investors and has made over 100 early-stage investments. His shift from founder to investor reflects a broader vision for nurturing the next wave of AI startups in India.

Recognised in 2023 as a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, Vaish continues to influence India’s AI landscape through a mix of policy engagement, entrepreneurial insight, and capital deployment. His focus remains on building scalable, locally rooted AI solutions with global relevance.

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Abhishek Singh, a 1995‑batch IAS officer and alumnus of IIT Kanpur and Harvard Kennedy School, currently serves as additional secretary at MeitY and CEO of the IndiaAI Mission as well as the director general of the Indian government’s National Informatics Centre.

He heads India’s ambitious five‑year, $1.2 billion AI strategy, securing over 10,000 GPUs, overseeing 67 foundational model proposals, and building open-access platforms like AIKosh for data sharing and voice‑based LLMs tailored to India’s diverse needs.

Singh is deeply committed to responsible and inclusive AI. He insists government-backed models should address real-world problems, be trained on local datasets, and adhere to ethical standards. He likens building trust in AI to early aviation, stressing accountability, explainability, and public confidence.

Beyond funding and infrastructure, Singh drives adoption through public-sector deployments, such as voice-enabled citizen services like UPI, and AI-powered tools in governance, including trademark search and IP-Saarthi chatbots.

His strategy strikes a balance between innovation and oversight, urging frequent upskilling to meet the AI moment and warning against job loss due to automation.

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Amitabh Kant is a senior Indian bureaucrat and policymaker, former CEO of the National Institution for Transforming India (NITI Aayog) and India’s G20 Sherpa. As a member of the Indian Administrative Service (Kerala Cadre, 1980 batch), Kant has been instrumental in shaping several flagship initiatives that have defined India’s development narrative, including Make in India, Startup India, Incredible India and God’s Own Country.

Kant has also played a pioneering role in India’s artificial intelligence strategy. Under his stewardship, NITI Aayog released the National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence in 2018, making India one of the first countries to outline AI for inclusive development. He oversaw the creation of the AI Research Analytics and Knowledge Dissemination Platform (AIRAWAT) to provide scalable, cloud-based AI infrastructure and helped establish over 3,500 Atal Tinkering Labs in schools to foster early exposure to robotics, IoT and AI, with plans to expand to 10,000.

Kant is a thought leader and a prolific author. His books include Branding India: An Incredible Story, Incredible India 2.0, Made in India: 75 Years of Business and Enterprise, and The Elephant Moves: India’s New Place in the World, co-authored with Amit Kapoor.

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Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has advanced India’s AI ambitions with global partnerships and the launch of a ₹10,000-crore IndiaAI Mission, powered by over 18,000 GPUs. Under his watch, India is committed to developing its own large language models, aiming to rival global platforms like ChatGPT and DeepSeek.

In early 2024, he announced the IndiaAI Safety Institute, ensuring models are built safely and ethically using domestic data.

Vaishnaw’s global influence was evident at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum 2025, where he championed “AI for all”, highlighting India’s focus on equity, democratisation, and transparency. He also co-hosted a summit in Paris to set responsible global AI standards.

His push extends beyond policy. India is now designing 3nm chips domestically and ramping up semiconductor and GPU infrastructure. The minister has invited OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to collaborate on building a local AI stack (GPUs, models, and apps).

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Debjani Ghosh is one of the most influential voices in India’s digital transformation and AI policy landscape. With a deep commitment to inclusive innovation, she has played a pivotal role in shaping India’s AI journey through a people-first lens. As a NITI Aayog fellow and the former president of NASSCOM, Ghosh has been instrumental in driving India’s national AI strategy, emphasising ethical, responsible, and human-centric AI.

During her tenure at NASSCOM, Ghosh led efforts to position India as a global hub for AI and emerging technologies, fostering meaningful collaboration between industry, academia, and government. Her advocacy was central to the development of policy frameworks that prioritise inclusivity, especially in ensuring that AI solutions address India’s diverse linguistic, socio-economic, and gender realities.

Ghosh is also a passionate advocate for diversity and inclusion in technology. She has consistently called for increasing women’s participation in the digital economy and ensuring that AI systems are built with datasets that represent India’s vast and varied population.

As a thought leader, Ghosh has emphasised the need for India to build its own ethical foundations for AI, distinct from the Western frameworks, while remaining globally competitive.

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Dilip Asbe is the managing director and CEO of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), serving since January 2018 after rising through the ranks from CTO and COO. Under his leadership, NPCI processes over 18 billion financial transactions monthly, operating platforms like UPI, RuPay, IMPS, AePS, Bharat QR, and the Bharat Bill Payment System.

Asbe’s vision includes taking UPI global. He’s spearheaded expansions into countries like the UAE, Singapore, and France, aiming for 100 billion UPI transactions a month and enabling voice‑based payments and credit-enabled UPI services. Asbe holds a Master’s degree in global management from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), UK, and a degree in electronics engineering from Mumbai University.

Asbe is also an alumnus of Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program. In India, his work spans AI-driven fraud detection, risk analytics, personalisation, and cyber-fraud mitigation, with a clear view that AI will significantly impact data generation.

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Duddilla Sridhar Babu, Telangana’s minister for IT, electronics and communications, industries and commerce, and legislative affairs, is steering the state into an AI-powered future. A seasoned legislator and former advocate, Sridhar Babu combines legal acumen with policy vision to champion digital innovation and inclusive growth. Under his leadership, Telangana is embracing emerging technologies like AI, IoT, and Industry 4.0 to foster job creation, empower youth, and attract global tech investments.

His international exposure and progressive governance are shaping policies that balance rapid tech adoption with ethical, citizen-centric outcomes. Having held key ministerial portfolios earlier, including higher education and civil supplies, he brings depth and continuity to his governance.

Sridhar Babu’s mission is clear: to position Telangana not just as India’s startup capital but as a global hub for responsible and inclusive AI. In a world racing ahead with digital disruption, he ensures Telangana doesn’t just keep pace, it leads.

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Piyush Goyal, India’s Union commerce and industry minister since 2019, has emerged as a passionate advocate for responsible AI and technological innovation.

He recently unveiled the AI and ML-powered Trademark Search Technology and IP‑Saarthi Chatbot, tools set to expedite trademark clearances and guide users through intellectual property processes, part of a broader push to embed AI into government services.

Goyal has emphasised the importance of ethical AI frameworks. Speaking at the National Law University, Delhi, he warned that “copyright and AI…stand at the crossroads of a very, very disturbing future,” urging expert collaboration to build regulations that prevent misuse.

He believes that AI should “add to creativity” without substituting human judgment.

Under his stewardship, the government is also mobilising ₹10,000 crore through the Fund of Funds for Startups to support deep-tech ventures in AI, ML, quantum computing and more. Initiatives such as the Unified Logistics Interface Platform (ULIP) and the PM Gatishakti National Master Plan are leveraging AI to enhance infrastructure and logistics efficiency.

Goyal repeatedly underscores that “AI cannot replace human wisdom,” especially in areas like agriculture, and is betting on “responsible adoption” as a catalyst for India’s growth into a $30–35trillion economy by 2047.

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Priyank Kharge, Karnataka’s minister for IT and digital economy, is one of the most influential policymakers shaping India’s AI landscape. With a forward-thinking vision, Kharge has been instrumental in drafting and implementing Karnataka’s AI policy, one of the most progressive in the country. His leadership marks a decisive shift toward inclusive, ethical, and human-centred AI adoption across sectors.

An advocate for leveraging technology to solve real-world problems, Kharge has driven several pioneering initiatives. Among them is the Beyond Bengaluru project, aimed at decentralising innovation and tech growth beyond the capital city, thereby fostering talent and opportunity across the state. He also oversaw the launch of India’s first centre of excellence for artificial intelligence, further cementing Karnataka’s position as a national leader in digital innovation.

Kharge’s governance is notably youth-focused and inclusive. He envisions AI not just as a driver of economic growth but as a tool for public good—actively promoting its application in governance, agriculture, education, and public health. His approach strikes a balance between innovation and accountability, promoting responsible AI development that benefits both citizens and the tech ecosystem.

Under his guidance, Karnataka has emerged as a preferred destination for global AI players, while also creating fertile ground for startups and homegrown talent.

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Rajeev Chandrasekhar, India’s former minister of state for electronics and IT, played a pivotal role in shaping the nation’s digital future. A technocrat-turned-politician, he brought Silicon Valley sensibility to Indian policymaking, balancing innovation with regulation. Under his watch, India’s AI ambitions found clear direction, championing responsible AI, semiconductor self-reliance, and deep-tech startups.

Chandrasekhar was instrumental in drafting frameworks that fuelled India’s trillion-dollar digital economy vision and positioned the country as a trusted partner in global tech ecosystems.

But beyond titles and policies, his journey is personal, rooted in his early engineering days, when he built chips and products in the US, and his return to serve a country brimming with untapped tech potential. His passion for innovation wasn’t just bureaucratic; it was infectious. In every byte of India’s digital transformation, there’s a hint of Chandrasekhar’s belief that technology, when shaped with purpose and inclusion, is the greatest equaliser of our times.

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Rajeshwar Singh, an MLA from Lucknow’s Sarojini Nagar, is a dynamic leader championing technological transformation and youth empowerment in Uttar Pradesh. Known for his forward-thinking governance, Singh has proposed key reforms to the state government, including the establishment of a state commission on artificial intelligence to regulate ethical use of AI, integration of AI and blockchain in public welfare schemes like the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana for enhanced transparency, and an AI-powered Intelligent Traffic Management System for Lucknow.

At the same time, Singh is deeply committed to youth development. Under the Ran Bahadur Singh Digital Education and Youth Empowerment Centre, he has launched free one-month AI training workshops, aiming to equip 50,000 youth with skills in O-Level computing, MS Office, Tally and AI tools. With 14 centres already operational and a goal of 100, each equipped with computers, Wi-Fi, and infrastructure, his mission is to build a digitally skilled and future-ready generation.

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Researchers

Balaraman Ravindran is one of India’s most influential AI researchers, with over 30 years of experience in machine learning, particularly in the field of reinforcement learning. As the founding head of the Wadhwani School of Data Science and AI, the Robert Bosch Centre for Data Science and AI, and the Centre for Responsible AI at IIT Madras, Ravindran has helped shape the country’s academic and institutional AI landscape from the ground up.

His contributions extend far beyond campus. Ravindran has advised the Indian government, the RBI, the World Economic Forum, and the REAIM council on the ethical, responsible deployment of AI, particularly in sensitive domains like defence and public policy. With over 150 published papers and multiple Best Paper Awards, he continues to influence AI globally through editorial roles and committee positions at The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (KDD).

Ravindran’s collaborations with Google Research, Intel, and IBM reflect his deep industry engagement, while his design of IIT Madras’ flagship AI programmes has trained a new generation of researchers and engineers. Honoured as an ACM Distinguished Member, AAAI fellow, and Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE) fellow, he remains a pivotal voice in advancing both the science and ethics of AI.

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Ganesh Ramakrishnan’s journey spans academia, industry, and national impact. After earning his PhD from IIT Bombay in 2004, he joined IBM Research India, where he worked on scalable information extraction systems. In 2009, he returned to IIT Bombay as an assistant professor, rising through the ranks to a full professorship in 2019.

Throughout the 2010s, Ramakrishnan led projects in statistical relational learning, feature induction and machine translation. His work underpinned tools like Sandhan (an Indic‐language search engine), BET for inductive logic programming, and Udaan, a translation engine for technical content in Indian languages. In 2024, Udaan evolved into Udaan Project, licensed to BharatBhashaTech, breaking language barriers in education.

Today, he leads BharatGen, a government‑backed, open‑source, multilingual and multimodal foundation model initiative launched in September 2024. BharatGen aims to produce inclusive, data‑efficient AI models tailored to India’s cultural and linguistic diversity, built atop pipelines from Udaan and powered by Bharat Data Sagar and AIKosha.

Beyond research, he serves as Bank of Baroda chair professor in digital entrepreneurship, heads IITB’s Koita Centre for Digital Health, and mentors PhDs focused on data‑efficient learning.

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At the Indian Institute of Science, Govindan Rangarajan wears the director’s hat with vision and scientific depth. A mathematician trained at BITS‑Pilani (integrated MSc) and the University of Maryland (PhD), he spent time at UC Berkeley before returning to India in 1992 to join IISc, where he later became the director in 2020.

Rangarajan’s research spans nonlinear dynamics, chaos, time-series analysis, and computational biology. He’s been deeply involved in interdisciplinary education, setting up satellite-based Indo‑French cyber‑university programs, an interdisciplinary PhD in mathematical sciences, and the Indo‑French Centre for Applied Mathematics.

A fellow of the JC Bose National and India’s top science academies, Rangarajan also holds France’s Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques.

Speaking at Belagavi in mid-2024, he took a realistic stance on AI’s impact: “Primary-level jobs and very common field and technology jobs will be replaced by AI,” urging youth to “reskill and upskill frequently”.

At NITK’s 2024 convocation, he emphasised “direct interaction” and creativity as essential human strengths that set us apart in an AI‑driven world.

Rangarajan combines deep research excellence—evident in over 220 publications and leadership of national and international mathematical initiatives—with a clear vision for preparing India for an AI‑enabled future.

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Mishu Mausam is one of India’s most respected AI researchers and the founding head of the Yardi School of Artificial Intelligence at IIT Delhi. With over two decades of pioneering research in natural language processing (NLP), automated reasoning, and machine learning, his work has significantly influenced the direction of AI in India.

A former research scientist at Microsoft Research and a professor at IIT Delhi, Mausam has published in leading AI conferences like NeurIPS, AAAI, and ACL. Under his leadership, the Yardi School has emerged as a premier institution producing cutting-edge research and nurturing India’s future AI talent.

He has also served as program chair of global AI conferences and sits on the editorial boards of leading journals. Beyond academia, he contributes to AI policy discussions and ethics frameworks, aiming to align AI development with India’s societal needs. His commitment to AI for social good and academic excellence positions him as a key architect of India’s AI future.

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Mitesh M Khapra, associate professor at IIT Madras and the founding head of the AI4Bharat Research Lab, is quietly driving India towards AI that truly speaks Indian languages. His goal since 2020 has been to bring Indic AI up to the same standard as English.

What began with painstaking data collection and model-building across a few languages has blossomed into one of the world’s largest open-source datasets, supporting IndicTrans2, a translation model that covers all 22 scheduled Indian languages—and it’s only getting stronger.

Khapra’s earlier work at IBM Research India focused on machine translation, cross-language learning, and deep learning. He has published extensively in top-tier venues like ACL, EMNLP, and NeurIPS. His contributions earned him prestigious honours—including the IBM PhD Fellowship, Microsoft Rising Star, Google Faculty Research Award, and several teaching and research awards at IIT Madras.

A key partner in India’s Bhashini Mission, AI4Bharat now powers about 80% of its data engine. Nandan Nilekani calls his work “amazing”, pointing out that real-world impact begins by building quality data and capturing voices from Kashmiri to Maithili.

With deep research credentials, open-source spirit and a vision that embraces linguistic diversity, Khapra is unlocking India’s voice in the global AI conversation.

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Long before building India’s AI future, Paras Chopra was writing neural networks in Visual Basic, and today he’s the founder of Lossfunk, a Bengaluru‑based independent AI research lab. After bootstrapping Wingify (the team behind VWO) to a $200million exit in 2024, he set his sights on founding a lab focused on efficient, high-quality AI reasoning and large‑language‑model alignment.

Under Chopra’s leadership, Lossfunk has already made waves in AI research. In early 2025, the team introduced IPO (Implicit Preference Optimisation), a novel approach to aligning LLMs without requiring external feedback, and demonstrated that it matched or exceeded state-of-the-art reward models.

That added to his list of bold decisions, like not allowing his team to work with Indian customers who don’t pay, showing how much he values their time and effort.

Chopra has also begun assembling a technical core for a lab that aims to contribute to India’s national AI strategy, experimenting with methods like reinforcement learning, pruning, distillation, and neurosymbolic systems to maximise efficiency.

A true independent thinker, he believes “creativity is born out of constraints,” emphasising that limited compute should not limit ambition. From bootstrapped SaaS to foundational AI research, his journey exemplifies India’s growing potential to lead in thoughtful, impactful AI innovation.

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From pioneering Indian-language AI tools to co-founding a full-stack GenAI startup, Pratyush Kumar has been reshaping the contours of AI in India. A graduate of IIT Bombay (BTech) and ETH Zurich (PhD), he began his career at Microsoft Research, IBM Research, and IIT Madras before co-creating AI4Bharat and PadhAI—initiatives that brought deep learning and language AI tools to classrooms and open-source developers.

In 2023, Kumar joined forces with VivekRaghavan to launch Sarvam AI, a Bengaluru-based startup dedicated to developing sovereign generative AI systems for India. Under his guidance, Sarvam AI focuses on multilingual voice-first applications and foundational models optimised for Indian languages and dialects.

Kumar has published over 89 papers and enjoys the trust of global investors. Sarvam raised $41 million in a Series A funding round led by Lightspeed, PeakXV, and Khosla Ventures.

His vision is clear: build GenAI that understands and responds in India’s native tongues and cultural contexts, creating tools that are as inclusive as they are innovative. With Sarvam AI chosen by the IndiaAI Mission to lead the development of a sovereign LLM, his mission to democratise AI continues to scale.

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Long before AI became a buzzword, Pushpak Bhattacharyya was quietly laying India’s linguistic foundations. A distinguished professor at IIT Bombay, where he holds the Major Bhagat Singh Rekhi Chair, he is often referred to as the ‘godfather of NLP in India’. His journey began with a BTech at IIT Kharagpur, followed by an MTech from IIT Kanpur, and a PhD from IIT Bombay in 1994.

Over three decades, Bhattacharyya has authored more than 350 research papers and guided over 300 students in topics ranging from machine translation to multilingual sentiment detection and computational sarcasm. His trailblazing projects include IndoWordNet, Indian‑language neural MT systems, sarcasm and emotion detection, and cognitively inspired NLP via eye‑tracking experiments.

Over the years, he has held major leadership roles, including director of IIT Patna (2015–20), president of the Association for Computational Linguistics (2016–17), and chair of the Bureau of Indian Standards’ AI Standardisation Committee.

His work has earned him numerous honours, including the Abdul Kalam National Fellowship, National Academy of Engineering fellowship, and recognition as an AI Disruptor in AIM’s global list.

Currently leading the Computation For Indian Language Technology (CFILT) lab at IIT Bombay, he also chairs the RBI’s FREE-AI ethical AI panel, shaping India’s fintech AI guidelines. Bhattacharyya’s vision continues to bridge India’s linguistic diversity and AI progress, making technology smarter, more sensitive, and truly inclusive.

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Anand is an LLM psychologist at Straive. He co-founded Gramener, a data science company that tells visual data stories, which was later acquired by Straive. Recognised as one of India’s top 10 data scientists, Anand is a regular speaker at TEDx, PyCon, and other global forums where he champions the power of storytelling with data.

A gold medalist at IIM Bangalore, he also holds a degree in electrical engineering from IIT Madras. Anand’s professional journey spans institutions like London Business School, IBM, Infosys Consulting, Lehman Brothers, and the Boston Consulting Group. Over the years, he has built over 200 data applications and mentored hundreds of analysts and designers, helping them blend analytics with empathy and design.

Anand is also a prolific writer and educator, with a passion for simplifying complex ideas—especially in the areas of data communication, automation, and productivity. Outside of work, he brings the same obsessive energy to his personal interests. He has hand-transcribed every Calvin & Hobbes strip ever made, is addicted to anime, and maintains an elaborate personal wiki to track everything he learns—from productivity hacks to movies watched. He dreams of watching every single film on the IMDb Top 250 list (except The Shining). He codes for fun, automates nearly every aspect of his life.

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Since co-founding Fractal in 2000, following his MBA from IIM Ahmedabad, Srikanth Velamakanni has led the company’s transformation from a bold idea into a global AI powerhouse, raising over $680 million from private equity investors and building solutions that power data-driven decisions across the enterprise.

Fractal’s vision to “power every human decision in the enterprise” is reflected in the innovative platforms built under his leadership, including Qure.ai, Eugenie.ai, Theremin.ai, Asper.ai, Senseforth.ai and Crux Intelligence. These products span sectors ranging from healthcare to supply chains, reflecting his commitment to real-world impact.

A lifelong student of mathematics, behavioural economics, neuroscience, and consumer behaviour, Velamakkani is a recognised thought leader and a respected public speaker. He serves as vice-chairman of NASSCOM, contributing as a subject matter expert on data and AI for India’s $250 billion technology industry. He is also co-founder and trustee of Plaksha University, where he champions interdisciplinary learning that blends AI, engineering, and liberal arts.

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Urbasi Sinha, a professor leading the Quantum Information and Computing (QuIC) lab at the Raman Research Institute, is catalysing India’s quantum revolution. Combining experimental finesse with visionary leadership, she pioneered the development of entangled and heralded single-photon sources, cornerstones for quantum computing, secure communications, and photonics‑driven deep tech.

A Gates Cambridge scholar whose journey from Cambridge to Bengaluru and Canada reflects her global impact, she’s spearheaded India’s first satellite‑based quantum communication project with ISRO and guided the National Quantum Mission.

Sinha’s career is studded with accolades, from the ICTP‑ICO Denardo Award (2018) to the Canada Excellence Research Chair and the recent Gates‑Cambridge Impact Prize (2025). Colleagues describe her ethos as deeply personal, a blend of scientific rigour and a desire to inspire young minds. Whether in labs or classrooms, Sinha breathes passion into quantum deep tech, forging breakthroughs and nurturing a future-ready ecosystem.

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At IITMadras, a quiet revolution is underway, and V Kamakoti, director since January 2022, is the one steering it. A researcher-turned-leader, Kamakoti has threaded AI, microprocessors, and interdisciplinary education into the very fabric of the institute.

He’s best known for leading the design of SHAKTI, India’s first indigenously developed RISC‑V microprocessor, a milestone in semiconductor self-reliance, now powering startups and defence-grade systems.

In his role, Kamakoti has championed responsible AI, ethics, and “hyper‑automation” in governance, ensuring that technology remains accountable.

Inside campus walls, he’s expanded IIT‑M’s curriculum to include online learning, interdisciplinary electives, and humanistic studies, blending tech and humanities for a holistic education.

Under his leadership, the institute launched new BTech programs in computational engineering and mechanics, instrumentation and biomedical engineering, integrating AI and computational tools directly into core engineering fields.

Kamakoti’s accolades include the Abdul Kalam Technology Innovation National Fellowship, IBM Faculty Award, DRDO Academic Excellence Award, and the IESA Techno Visionary Award.

With over 150 publications, a seat on the National Security Advisory Board, and a vision that spans chips to communities, Kamakoti is not just shaping IIT Madras; he’s shaping India’s future in semiconductor innovation, AI, and inclusive education.

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At the heart of India’s semiconductor and nanoelectronics renaissance stands V Ramgopal Rao, currently serving as the group vice‑chancellor of BITS Pilani and former director of IIT Delhi (2016–2021). He has authored over 480 research papers and holds more than 50 patents, including 20 issued in the US, with 15 licensed for commercial use.

Under his guidance, IIT Delhi earned the prestigious Institution of Eminence status in 2018 and launched India’s first Global Alumni Endowment Fund, which was kick-started with ₹265 crore. Since moving to BITS Pilani in 2023, he has overseen the expansion of campuses nationwide.

He’s a driving force in practical tech innovation, co-founding startups like Nanosniff and Soilsens, and leading the centre of excellence in Nanoelectronics. He has also worked on improving slew rate in FinFET-based technology. His accolades include India’s top science honours, the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize (2005) and Infosys Prize (2013), along with over 30 national and international awards.

A fellow of IEEE and India’s major science academies, Rao also served on editorial boards (including IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices) and contributed to industry and policy forums. From pioneering nanoelectronics to nurturing India’s next-gen tech institutes, V Ramgopal Rao’s journey blends top-tier research, leadership, and a passion for innovation that shapes both education and industry.

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L Venkata Subramaniam is a trailblazer in the fields of artificial intelligence and quantum computing, boasting an impressive career that spans over 20 years. With a knack for innovation, he has made significant contributions to the development of cutting-edge AI products and holds an astounding 38 patents. His work hasn’t gone unnoticed; his groundbreaking research has earned over 3,300 citations in top scientific journals.

As a recognised Master Inventor and a proud recipient of multiple IBM Technical Awards, Subramaniam has paved the way in areas like neuro-symbolic AI, noisy text analytics, and quantum AI/ML. He played a crucial role in shaping IBM’s Global Technology Outlook and was instrumental in coining the term “Veracity” as the fourth V of Big Data, truly a game-changer!

With a PhD from IIT Delhi, Venkata is not just a thinker but a mentor, dedicated to nurturing the next generation of researchers. His collaborations with leading academic institutions aim to establish India as a powerhouse in quantum technologies. Subramaniam’s journey is not just about personal achievement; it’s about lifting others and contributing to a future brimming with possibilities.

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Startups Ecosystem

Abhinav Raghuvanshi is the technical engineer behind Zepto’s lightning‑fast delivery promise. A seasoned data professional and IIT‑Delhi alumnus, he’s led the transformation of Zepto’s data platform from monolithic warehouses to a modern hybrid lakehouse. This shift is powered by S3, Kafka, Databricks, and ClickHouse, enabling real-time insights across operations.

At AIM’s Data Engineering Summit 2025, Raghuvanshi revealed how ClickHouse has become Zepto’s “real‑time nerve centre”, with critical metrics like inventory levels, delivery logistics, and fridge temperatures refreshing in milliseconds, fueling precision decisions like instant restocking.

This architecture now supports over 400 analysts with low‑code, SQL‑friendly tools, empowering business teams to generate insights independently. Before his tenure at Zepto, Raghuvanshi built data infrastructure at Uber, Pickrr, and UnitedHealth Group, refining his ability to scale platform performance and reliability.

His work not only underpins Zepto’s 10-minute delivery model but also helps drive the quick-commerce giant’s ongoing AI-enabled evolution, making rapid, data-driven action a core business capability.

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Ankush Sabharwal, a national award-winning tech entrepreneur and CEO of CoRover.ai, is leading an innovative effort, guiding the top GenAI-powered, human-centric conversational AI platform that supports over one billion users. He initiated the groundbreaking BharatGPT project, India’s first large language model. His mission is to leverage technology to transform businesses and improve lives.

With 20 years of experience in SaaS product development and leadership across startups and MNCs in India, North America, and Europe (including the UK and France), Sabharwal has generated multi-million-dollar revenues and led teams of up to 1,200 professionals.

Honoured as Innovator of the Year (2024), Entrepreneur of the Year, and ranked among the Top 10 AI Influencers worldwide, Sabharwal has over 20 years of extensive IT experience across India, the US, and Europe. He holds an MS in software engineering from BITS Pilani and an MBA, showcasing his dedication to excellence in both technology and business.

At CoRover, he oversees key areas including strategy, product management, R&D, engineering, customer success, operational excellence, marketing, sales, GTM, alliances, partnerships, and fundraising.

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Ashutosh Singh is steering RevRag.AI to revolutionise how banks, NBFCs, fintechs, and insurers engage and onboard customers through intelligent, voice-driven AI agents. Backed by pre-seed funding ($600,000) from investors like Kunal Shah, Premal Shah and Viral Bajaria, Singh is charting a deliberate path, and “not quitting India” despite long enterprise sales cycles, aiming for his first $1million in ARR from the country, scaling to $10 million by blending operations in India and the US.

At the heart of RevRag’s offering are agentic AI models like ‘Emma’ and omnichannel orchestration systems that guide users during onboarding, resolve document issues, reduce drop-offs, and boost completion rates within apps. Singh bridges product leadership and GTM expertise, combining prior roles in fintech automation (6sense, Slintel) to tailor AI agents that solve real-time problems in the BFSI sector.

Driven by persistence and deep domain insight, Singh is building India’s first truly embedded voice‑AI platform that helps financial institutions scale customer journeys efficiently and personally.

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When India started dreaming big about homegrown AI, Bhavish Aggarwal didn’t just listen from the sidelines. He built the tools from the ground up. The co‑founder and CEO of Ola Consumer, and founder of Ola Electric and Ola Krutrim, Aggarwal is steering India’s shift toward self-reliant and culturally attuned artificial intelligence.

Under his leadership, Krutrim has launched Kruti, India’s first multilingual agentic AI assistant, supporting over 13 Indian languages and set to expand to all 22 official languages.

At the 2024 Sankalp event in Bengaluru, he unveiled plans for India’s first homegrown AI chips—Bodhi‑1 by 2026, followed by Bodhi‑2 by 2028 and announced a roadmap to establish a 1-GW data centre by 2028.

Aggarwal’s message is bold: build AI in Bhartiya languages, rooted in local data, and make it accessible to all Indians. He’s also deployed powerful open-source models like DeepSeek‑R1 at just ₹1 per million tokens to democratise AI access. From mobility to AI infrastructure, Aggarwal is transforming Ola into a powerhouse of AI innovation, proving that India can pioneer not just in usage but in creation.

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Dr Charit Bhograj is a leading interventional cardiologist in Bengaluru with over two decades of experience. He’s a consultant at Manipal Hospitals, known for handling complex cardiac conditions. Apart from his clinical practice, Dr Bhograj founded and leads Tricog Health, a pioneering medtech company established in 2014.

Recognising a major gap in healthcare that resulted in millions of deaths, he established Tricog Health, one of the world’s leading health AI companies. It leverages cutting-edge technology for quick diagnosis and management of heart disease.

Tricog utilises AI and human expertise for remote cardiac diagnosis, having screened over 27 million patients and identified more than 9.5 lakh critical cardiac cases globally.

Dr Bhograj is a respected figure in both cardiology and health technology. He’s an active member of top cardiology societies and contributes significantly to medical writing and research. He completed his MBBS in Bijapur, followed by an MD in general medicine in Belgaum, and a DM in cardiology in Chennai.

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CP Gurnani is recognised as one of the most influential figures in global technology. As the co-founder and vice chairman of AIonOS, Gurnani is shaping the future of AI to solve real-world challenges, making businesses smarter, greener, and more sustainable.

From leading the revival of Satyam Computer Services, one of the most iconic corporate turnarounds in Indian history, to driving Tech Mahindra’s transformation into a digital powerhouse, Gurnani’s leadership journey is a playbook in vision, resilience, and execution.

The Satyam story, now studied at Harvard Business School, was about proving that bold, values-led leadership can rewrite the rules. He carried that transformation mindset into every role, including at HCL Corporation, Hewlett-Packard, and Perot Systems, where he led large-scale digital initiatives and set new standards in operational excellence.

He has represented India in several of the Prime Minister’s international CEO delegations, helping position the country as a global technology leader and forging impactful cross-border partnerships.

His vision is bold yet grounded: technology must work for people, not the other way around. At AionOS, he’s turning that vision into action, creating platforms that solve real-world problems and create lasting value across industries.

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Debdoot Mukherjee is the chief data scientist and head of AI at Meesho, leading the development and implementation of AI strategies that enhance every aspect of the e-commerce marketplace. Under his leadership, AI and machine learning technologies at Meesho drive personalised product recommendations to boost demand, assist suppliers in effective product cataloguing and pricing, and optimise supply chain operations to improve fulfilment efficiency.

With over 15 years of experience, Mukherjee has a rich background in building innovative AI products across social, mobile, and e-commerce domains. Before joining Meesho, he served as vice president and head of AI at ShareChat and Moj, where he spearheaded initiatives in recommender systems, multimodal learning, and advanced camera technologies. He also established the AI team at Hike Messenger, developing pioneering methods for conversational modelling in Indic languages and large-scale social graph mining.

Earlier in his career, Mukherjee led machine learning efforts at Myntra, focusing on personalised search, product discovery, and marketing intelligence. He began his professional journey at IBM Research, specialising in enterprise search and information extraction. Mukherjee holds a master’s degree in computer science and engineering from IIT Delhi, graduating as a gold medallist.

His expertise and leadership continue to influence the growth of AI capabilities in India’s dynamic tech ecosystem, particularly in advancing AI-driven efficiencies within e-commerce platforms.

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Dipanjan Dey is the CEO and co-founder of Kombai, the first AI agent for front-end development. With domain-specific tooling and model optimisations, Kombai significantly outperforms general-purpose coding agents on front-end tasks. Kombai also raised a $4.5 million seed round from Foundry Group Capital.

Dey boasts a remarkable career in the tech industry, marked by innovation and strategic leadership. At Kombai, he took the helm in developing a cutting-edge Figma-to-code tool that garnered widespread acclaim, ultimately being recognised as Product Hunt’s #1 developer tool of the year. This achievement showcases his ability to marry creative design with practical software solutions, making a significant impact on developers everywhere.

Prior to his tenure at Kombai, Dey was a driving force in product and strategy at MindTickle, a dynamic SaaS unicorn renowned for its groundbreaking approach to sales readiness. His role there allowed him to refine his strategic acumen while navigating the complexities of a rapidly evolving market. Dey’s journey in the tech world began with a passion for product development, where he discovered his knack for transforming visionary ideas into tangible successes, setting the stage for a truly impressive career path in strategy consulting.

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Ganesh Gopalan is the co-founder and CEO of Gnani.ai, a voice-first conversational AI company focused on building secure, multilingual automation for enterprises. With over 25 years of experience at IBM and Texas Instruments, he brings deep technical and business expertise to India’s AI ecosystem.

A graduate of the Indian School of Business, Gopalan has spent his career on research and real-world application, specialising in speech recognition, embedded systems, and secure AI deployments. Gopalan is an advocate for responsible AI in enterprise use, particularly in sensitive sectors like finance and healthcare.

Backed by Samsung Ventures and InfoEdge Ventures, his company has helped financial clients automate millions of interactions and recover over $2 billion in just six months. Gopalan’s mission is clear: to combine research and real-world impact, making India a hub for globally competitive AI.

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Laina Emmanuel is a seasoned healthcare leader and entrepreneur with over 15 years of experience spanning healthcare management, policy, consulting, technology, and international development. Holding an MBA in healthcare from the Indian School of Business (ISB), she has leveraged her expertise to advise the government of India and high-impact organisations such as the Clinton Health Access Initiative.

Beginning her career as a systems programmer at NetApp and the Offshore Development Centre of Cisco at Infosys, Emmanuel gained deep technical knowledge, building products impacting millions. Transitioning into international development, she worked as an independent consultant on public health and education policy, focusing on sustainable, ethical solutions.

Driven by a passion for systemic change, Emmanuel founded Brainsight AI, a company developing AI and 3D visualisation-based products aimed at improving the diagnosis and prognosis of neuropsychiatric disorders. Her multifaceted background combines technology, policy, and business with a commitment to building impactful, ethically grounded innovations in healthcare.

Emmanuel’s work exemplifies the intersection of cutting-edge technology and meaningful social impact, positioning her as a pioneering figure in AI-driven healthcare solutions.

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Madhav Krishna is a visionary entrepreneur leading the way in leveraging artificial intelligence to foster social change in India. As the founder and CEO of Vahan AI, he has pioneered one of the country’s most impactful job-matching platforms, designed specifically to connect blue-collar workers with employment opportunities.

Educated at institutions like Yale University and backed by stints in global tech ecosystems, Krishna chose to return to India to tackle one of its most pressing challenges: unemployment in the informal sector. Under his leadership, Vahan AI has facilitated over 3 million job placements, leveraging AI to break down traditional barriers to employment, such as a lack of formal education, weak professional networks, and geographic isolation.

What sets Krishna apart is not just his technical fluency but his unwavering focus on inclusivity. At a time when AI is often built for elite or enterprise use, Krishna is using it to serve the underserved. His machine learning systems intelligently parse user behaviour, preferences, and skills even when input is minimal or unstructured, to match job seekers with roles in delivery services, retail, logistics, and BPOs.

Krishna is part of a new wave of Indian tech founders reimagining what AI can do, not just as a driver of efficiency or profit, but as a tool for empowerment. His work reflects a grounded vision of technology that uplifts rather than excludes, making him a standout leader in India’s AI landscape.

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Mahesh Kumar is the visionary founder and CEO of Tiger Analytics, a global leader in AI and advanced analytics consulting. Since founding the company in 2011, Kumar has been the driving force behind Tiger Analytics’ remarkable growth, transforming it from a startup into a trusted partner for Fortune 1000 companies across multiple industries worldwide.

With deep expertise in management science and a passion for leveraging AI to solve complex business challenges, Kumar has built Tiger Analytics into a premier analytics firm known for innovation, customer-centricity, and AI excellence. His strategic business acumen and leadership have been instrumental in expanding Tiger’s footprint across the US, Canada, India, Singapore, the UK, and Australia—delivering exponential revenue growth and establishing long-term client partnerships.

Before founding Tiger Analytics, Kumar was a faculty member at the Smith School of Business and Rutgers Business School, where his research in data mining and statistical modelling provided actionable insights on critical business problems, including forecasting, pricing, promotions, and customer segmentation. This academic foundation continues to influence Tiger’s data-driven approach to solving real-world challenges.

He holds a PhD in operations research and marketing from MIT and a BTech in computer science from IIT Bombay.

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Mayank Singh is an assistant professor at IIT Gandhinagar, recognised for his pioneering work in low-resource and Indic language technologies. Singh played a key role in building BLOOM, the world’s largest open-access multilingual language model, and leads the development of the Ganga small language models for secure, offline use. His team is now spearheading data curation for EKA, India’s largest multilingual AI model initiative.

Singh, a collaborator with Soket AI Labs, is also the creator of foundational datasets like CoMI-LINGUA and TabLeX, and has developed public tools such as Gandhipedia and GurukulAI. A founding member of IndoML and host of India’s first ACM Summer School on Generative AI, Singh combines technical depth with community engagement. His mentorship of 100+ BTech students—many published at top AI conferences—has redefined undergraduate research in India.

With ₹8.6 crore in grants and deep industry ties, Singh is advancing inclusive, indigenous AI aligned with national priorities.

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Naveen Tewari is an Indian tech leader and entrepreneur, best known for founding InMobi in 2007 and later launching Glance, both built around cutting-edge AI technologies. A graduate of IIT Kanpur with an MBA from Harvard Business School, he led InMobi to become India’s first unicorn and positioned it as a global mobile advertising powerhouse.

Tewari is now driving an AI-first strategy, including a massive $200 million investment in generative AI for InMobi’s ad tech and Glance commerce platforms. He has boldly predicted that AI could automate up to 80% of coding tasks by year-end, urging engineers to upskill. Under his leadership, Glance has partnered with Google Cloud to integrate generative AI through Gemini and Android, creating real-time, personalised experiences for over 400 million users.

Tewari has played a key role in supporting around 30 start-ups across India, personally investing in and mentoring ventures including NestAway, SlideRule, Mettl, Moneysights, Bombay Canteen, Zimmber, and Razorpay. He is a firm believer that start-ups will drive India’s future growth. He co-founded iSPIRT—a think tank and change agent focused on shaping government policy, creating market enablers and nurturing product entrepreneurs. Through this initiative, he aims to help transform India into a global hub for next-generation software products.

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It’s rare to encounter someone who blurs the lines between imagination and invention—Pranav Mistry does it effortlessly. Born in Palanpur, Gujarat, in 1981, Mistry first gained global attention with SixthSense, a wearable gestural interface that merges digital information with the physical world. He earned a master’s degree in design from IIT Bombay, followed by an MS and PhD at MIT’s Media Lab.

After stints as a UX researcher at Microsoft, NASA, Google, UNESCO and CMU, he joined Samsung in 2012 as director of research. There, he led innovations like the Galaxy Gear smartwatch, Project Beyond, and the NEON AI avatars. In 2019, he became president and CEO of Samsung STAR Labs, continuing to push the boundaries of AR and AI.

In 2021, he founded TWO, an artificial‑reality startup that launched SUTRA, a multilingual large‑language model supporting over 50 languages, with a focus on compact, value-driven AI. His work earned him global accolades, including MIT’s TR35 Innovator Under 35, Popular Science’s Invention of the Year, and recognition as a Young Global Leader by WEF.

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Prashant Warier is the co-founder and CEO of Qure.ai, one of the world’s leading medical imaging AI companies. Under his leadership, Qure.ai’s innovative AI-driven diagnostic solutions have been deployed in over 100 countries, revolutionising medical imaging accessibility and efficiency globally.

With over two decades of experience in data science and technology, Warier has developed and commercialised numerous AI applications across diverse industries. He holds more than 30 patents and has contributed research published in prestigious scientific journals, including The Lancet and Nature. In recognition of his groundbreaking work in COVID-19 diagnostics, Warier received the Forbes India Leadership Award for Innovation in 2021.

Warier is also a prominent advocate for AI in healthcare, regularly speaking at international forums and conferences. He is driven by a vision to make healthcare more affordable and universally accessible through technology.

He holds a PhD and MS in operations research from the Georgia Institute of Technology, USA, and a bachelor’s degree from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi.

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Pratik Desai is a Silicon Valley-based entrepreneur, computer scientist, and the founder of KissanAI, a pioneering agritech startup transforming agriculture with generative AI. Born into a farming family in Gujarat, Desai leveraged his expertise in artificial intelligence, semantic web, and knowledge extraction to develop platforms that make advanced technology accessible to underserved farming communities.

He holds a PhD in engineering and has previously co-founded multiple technology ventures in Silicon Valley. As founder and CEO of KissanAI, Desai pioneered KissanGPT, a breakthrough voice-based generative AI copilot that supports Indic languages and helps overcome literacy and language barriers in agriculture.

He continued this innovation with the Dhenu series, the world’s first agriculture-specific large language models and among the first fine-tuned models developed in the country. Currently, he is focused on building an agentic agriculture knowledge platform that connects agribusinesses with farmers, enabling highly accurate and impactful use cases across the sector.

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Praveer Kochhar is building AI for sectors where control, compliance, and confidentiality aren’t optional. As the co-founder and chief product officer at KOGO AI, he is leading the charge on private AI—agent-based systems that operate entirely within enterprise infrastructure.

A firm believer in practical, secure AI deployment, Kochhar is championing agentic AI intelligent agents that can be securely embedded across critical workflows in sectors like defence, BFSI, and healthcare.

Under his leadership, KOGO AI claims to have become the first platform to implement agentic AI solutions for the Indian Army, operating entirely within the Army’s secure infrastructure without any data leaving the premises.

To accelerate such deployments across industries, Kochhar and his team developed KOGO OS, a low-to-no-code platform that allows enterprises to build and manage custom AI agents across on-premises, hybrid, or secure cloud environments.

What began in 2018 as a travel-focused AI product has grown into a horizontal enterprise platform, now powering agentic automation at scale. For Kochhar, the goal is to simplify AI adoption and give enterprises full ownership of their models, agents, and data stacks.

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Raghu Dharmaraju has spent over two decades building deep-technology products, public infrastructure, and award-winning medical technology solutions with enduring impact. Now leading AI and Robotics Technology Park (ARTPARK) at the Indian Institute of Science, he helped launch initiatives like the Medical Imaging Datasets for India system and real-time outbreak prediction platforms covering 80 million people.

Dharmaraju is a two-time Global Grand Challenge winner for equitable AI and winner of the Google AI Impact Challenge. He co-founded the national tuberculosis initiative TRACE-TB at Wadhwani AI, raising approximately $20 million from global donors. Dharmaraju is a veteran of the tech-for-good space and was instrumental in starting the ‘AI for social good’ movement as a founding leader at Wadhwani AI. His Embrace Infant Warmers reached over one million babies via the World Health Organisation and governments.

With academic foundations from IIT Madras, University of Massachusetts Amherst, and Cornell University, Dharmaraju has shaped national AI programmes with partners like the Indian Council of Medical Research, NITI Aayog and Google. His work bridges policy, research and social scale.

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Rishabjit Singh’s journey in AI began at IIT Delhi, where he studied electrical engineering with a focus on robotics from 2013 to 2017. At IIT, he played an active role in the Robotics Club, which helped shape his early interest in sensing and autonomy.

After completing a summer internship at Adobe in 2016, he joined the company full-time in 2017 as a member of technical staff and advanced to senior member by early 2019.

He joined Attentive.ai the same year as a software product engineer, quickly moving into leadership roles. By 2021, he became the VP of technology, overseeing computer vision research and engineering teams. In March 2022, he was named the CTO and continues to guide product development, AI research, cloud infrastructure, and DevOps operations. Attentive.ai builds Vision-AI platforms, including Automeasure, Accelerate, and Beam AI. These tools automate manual takeoffs and sales workflows in the field services and construction industries, serving over 500 companies in North America. In a second tranche of SeriesA funding in January, the company raised $12million to expand its capability and market reach.

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Ritwika Chowdhury is the driving force behind Unscript.ai, which the company claims is the world’s first AI creative video agent. Her platform empowers brands, from D2C and BFSI to marketing agencies, to generate studio-quality videos in under two minutes using only a product link and a brief. Whether it’s a PDP lifestyle shoot, an influencer-style UGC video, or a performance ad, Unscript replaces complex shoots and editing with a straightforward AI workflow.

It automates everything: scripting, visuals, AI avatars, audio, transitions and subtitles, drastically reducing time and cost while preserving creative control. Under Chowdhury’s leadership, Unscript has partnered with over 100 brands globally, delivering personalised videos that drive engagement and conversion. The technology has outperformed competitors like Google Vlogger and OpenAI’s Sora by converting a single image into a fully expressive video, with lifelike movements, voice and emotion.

An alumnus of IIT Kharagpur with a strong foundation in generative AI research and patents, she combines deep technical expertise with a product vision. Thanks to her innovation, Unscript is transforming video marketing with scalable, ethical AI workflows that let creativity soar in minutes.

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Sanket Shah is the driving force behind InVideo, India’s fast‑growing AI-first video platform. Founded in 2017, InVideo began as a browser‑based video editor before Shah led a pivot to generative AI in mid‑2023. That propelled the company from stagnation to $70 million in annual recurring revenue by early 2025.

Under his leadership, InVideo has become a go-to platform for content creators, marketers, and entrepreneurs, helping generate over 100 million videos across 190 countries. The company utilises generative media, a vast stock library, and prompt-based workflows to enable professional-grade video creation without requiring technical expertise.

Shah fosters a “hacker mindset” culture, valuing rapid iteration, ownership and autonomy over hierarchy, to stay ahead in a competitive AI landscape. His vision centres on simplifying video storytelling for everyone, making content creation as accessible as writing, and potentially positioning InVideo as India’s next billion‑dollar SaaS story.

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Soham Ganatra is a seasoned leader with deep expertise in engineering and product management. He is the founder of Composio, a company he launched in June 2023 to build tooling that enhances how AI agents interact with software applications, bridging the gap between automation and real-world usability.

Before founding Composio, Ganatra played a pivotal role at Bureau, Inc as a founding engineer and technical product manager. There, he spearheaded the development of a no-code risk orchestration platform and launched a full-fledged risk API, enabling smarter and more scalable risk management for enterprises.

Ganatra also co-founded Darkhorse Capital, where he focused on trading infrastructure and quantamental investment strategies. Earlier, he co-founded Cogno AI, a customer service automation startup that served large enterprises with AI-powered support solutions.

His professional journey includes stints in quantitative research and internships at leading firms like Indeed.com and American Express, reflecting his strong grounding in data-driven technologies.

Ganatra holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, where he studied from 2013 to 2017.

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Tamaswati Ghosh leads the IIT Madras Incubation Cell (IITMIC) as chief executive officer. She joined the founding team more than a decade ago, helping shape it into India’s leading deep‑tech startup hub. Her journey began with a degree in engineering, followed by early roles in technology-driven startups.

At IITMIC, she built programs to help nascent ventures transform lab‑scale science into market‑ready products. Under her leadership, the cell launched incubator facilities, secured funding partnerships, and introduced mentoring networks linking researchers, engineers, and investors.

Ghosh also championed innovation across sectors, ranging from clean energy to advanced materials. She created workshops, investment forums, and exchange programs that helped dozens of startups scale. Her efforts contributed to the creation of spin‑offs that address challenges in healthcare, climate, and manufacturing.

In her work, she bridges academic research and industry application, guiding support structures that allow deep‑tech teams to validate their ideas and access markets. Alongside core incubation functions, she fosters policy dialogue with government and industry bodies to improve the national innovation ecosystem.

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Umakant Soni is an influential force in India’s AI innovation landscape. As the chairman and co-founder of AI Foundry, he is building an India-first AI startup ecosystem focused on solving complex local problems. With a background in venture capital, research, and entrepreneurship, Soni has incubated and mentored several AI-driven startups across healthcare, fintech, and public governance. He has also co-founded ARTPARK and pi Ventures, a venture firm focused on AI/ML and IoT.

AI Foundry serves as both a product studio and a strategic think tank, pushing for a sovereign AI stack tailored to Indian use cases. Soni’s efforts have catalysed indigenous AI development, ensuring India becomes a creator, not just a consumer, of cutting-edge technologies.

Soni is deeply involved in AI ethics and policy discussions, advocating for responsible innovation. His work aligns startups, academia, and government towards a shared vision for AI-led inclusive growth. Recognised as a leading tech evangelist, Soni is committed to building AI capabilities that are globally competitive but rooted in Indian values and challenges.

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When Vishnu Subramanian launched Jarvislabs.ai from Coimbatore in 2019, his goal was to make high-performance AI compute as easy to access as Google Search. With NVIDIA GPUs priced up to 70% lower than hyperscalers, his initiative with Jarvislabs.ai aimed at becoming the go-to cloud for researchers, startups, and enterprises seeking serious AI power without breaking the bank. Before launching Jarvislabs, he honed his skills as a Kaggle expert and continues to mentor young data scientists

Today, his platform can spin up fully-configured JupyterLab environments in as little as 10 seconds—no DevOps team required. Whether it’s Tesla, Meta, or Indian firms like Zoho and upGrad, customers rely on Subramanian’s platform to train large models without financial or technical bottlenecks. From a modest lab to a Tier 3.5 GPU cloud with global reach, the journey has been entirely bootstrapped and remarkably bold.

As a Kaggle expert, Subramanian brings a hands-on, builder’s mindset to creating solutions in India for the world. His one-click orchestration layer and low-capex model demonstrate that world-class infrastructure can be scaled without Silicon Valley roots.

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Long before generative AI became a buzzword in India, Vivek Raghavan was already laying the groundwork.

As a co‑founder of Sarvam AI, he’s building India’s own full‑stack generative AI ecosystem, launching foundational models like Sarvam2B and OpenHathi tailored for Indian languages. His impact runs deep in the country’s digital DNA. Raghavan was the chief product manager and biometric architect at UIDAI, playing a pivotal role in architecting Aadhaar, the world’s largest identity system, and integrating AI to boost accuracy and prevent fraud.

As a mentor to AI4Bharat and an advisor to Bhashini, he has championed the use of open-source datasets, models, and benchmarks that support India’s linguistic diversity. In 2025, Raghavan earned a DLitt for his work in digital public infrastructure, spanning Aadhaar, GST, UPI, language AI, and judicial translation systems.

He continues to shape India’s future with Sarvam AI, where the mission is clear: build generative AI that speaks India’s languages, serves its needs, and scales responsibly.

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Big Tech and IT

Akash Ambani is the chairman of Reliance Jio Infocomm and a driving force behind India’s digital transformation. He joined Reliance Jio in 2014 as a non-executive director and was appointed chairman in June 2022. Since then, he has led the company’s strategic push into next-generation technologies, including 5G, AI, blockchain, and IoT, with a vision to revolutionise commerce, education, and healthcare in India.

At the 2023 Techfest at IIT Bombay, Ambani announced Jio’s collaboration with the institute to develop Bharat GPT, an indigenous large language model inspired by ChatGPT, marking a significant step in India’s AI journey. He also unveiled plans for a proprietary smart TV operating system as part of the broader Jio 2.0 strategy aimed at redefining the digital ecosystem.

Further advancing Jio’s AI capabilities, he spearheaded the development of a gigawatt-scale AI data centre in Jamnagar, powered by NVIDIA GPUs. This facility is designed to deliver GPU-as-a-service and cloud-PC solutions, solidifying Jio’s position at the forefront of the AI infrastructure in India.

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Arundhati Bhattacharya, former chairperson of SBI and now CEO and chairperson of Salesforce India, sees AI as India’s ‘fire’, capable of transforming everything, but also warns that it needs responsible oversight. In January 2025, she was honoured with the Padma Shri in recognition of her transformative role in trade, industry, banking, and technology.

Bhattacharya made history as the first woman to chair the State Bank of India (2013–2017), where she led multiple digital innovations, including the merger of SBI’s associate banks, the launch of the YONO digital platform, and the introduction of AI and robotics for credit and risk assessment. Under her leadership, SBI weathered major reforms, including the 2016 demonetisation.

In 2020, she embraced a bold pivot, becoming the CEO and chairperson of Salesforce India and South Asia. Since then, she has spearheaded rapid growth, expanding the workforce fivefold, establishing a community of over two million trailblazers, forging deep partnerships with colleges, and championing AI-powered CRM adoption across industries.

A respected voice on digital equity, Bhattacharya often speaks of AI as “a social equaliser” that can bring quality services to all Indians.

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Jaya Jagadish is the country head of AMD India and senior vice president of silicon design engineering, leading one of AMD’s largest global design centres. Under her leadership, the team has grown from a small engineering team to a design centre of over 9,000 strong engineers.

Jagadish stands as a transformative leader in the global semiconductor industry landscape. At a time when engineering design work in India was limited, Jagadish was a trailblazer, assembling and mentoring a high-performance team at AMD. Under her leadership, the India design centre has expanded significantly, playing a pivotal role in AMD’s global product roadmap across CPUs, GPUs, SoCs, and AI.

Today, AMD is well-positioned to address the AI market with a comprehensive portfolio offering end-to-end solutions that integrate both advanced hardware and optimised software to power AI infrastructure at scale. Under Jagadish’s leadership, there is a strong focus on upskilling employees in AI and emerging technologies, ensuring the workforce is future-ready and aligned with the evolving demands of the industry.

Beyond AMD, she has been actively working with the government of India in shaping the country’s semiconductor policy and ecosystem. As chairperson of the Semiconductor Talent Building Committee under the India Semiconductor Mission, Jagadish collaborated with government and industry stakeholders to position India as a global hub for semiconductor talent.

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Kalika Bali is a senior principal researcher at Microsoft Research Labs India, where she has dedicated nearly two decades to enhancing human-computer interactions through language technologies. Her focus lies in creating inclusive tech for a diverse range of languages and communities, especially those that are underrepresented. She is particularly interested in how foundational models like GPT can impact society, for better or worse.

Bali is a key member of the Project VeLLM (UniVersal Empowerment with Large Language Models) team, an interdisciplinary initiative dedicated to enabling inclusive LLM applications across all languages and cultures
Her recent work navigates the crossroads of multilingual and multicultural AI, exploring how to use AI in a safe and responsible manner. She was on the first (2023) TIME100 AI list for her work on breaking down language barriers and fostering inclusivity in the AI sphere. More recently, she was named among the 30 Indian Minds Leading the AI Revolution by Forbes India.

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Kamna Sama is the chief technology and information officer at Volkswagen Group Technology Solutions India, bringing over 20 years of cross-industry experience spanning pharmaceuticals, banking, manufacturing, ITES, telecom and agriculture.

Known for driving innovation, Sama specialises in leveraging technology to transform service delivery, streamline business operations, and lead product management initiatives.

Before joining Volkswagen, Sama held leadership roles, including IT director at Cummins and head of the manufacturing digital experience practice at TCS. She has a strong background in program management, presales, and launching new business initiatives. As an active member of the CII regional committee on digital transformation and AI, she continues to champion technology-led growth.

A computer science engineering graduate from the University of Mumbai, Sama now leads IT strategy and innovation for Volkswagen Group Technology Solutions India, which was established in 2016 in Pune. Her focus is on integrating advanced technologies to enhance efficiency and productivity while aligning with Volkswagen Group’s global IT vision.

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ManishGupta is a distinguished leader driving Google DeepMind’s research across India and Japan, passionately committed to building AI that’s both inclusive and impactful. Under his guidance, DeepMind’s India team made pivotal contributions to Gemini 2.5 Flash, a high-efficiency, low-latency model that delivers approximately five times better performance per dollar than its peers.

He previously founded Google Research India, dedicated to powering accessible AI that works on mobile, across India’s linguistic diversity, and in resource-constrained settings. His team spearheaded IndicGenBench, a benchmark covering 29 Indian languages, and developed modules that enable support for over 125 languages, including those with negligible digital presence.

A PhD graduate from UIUC, Gupta has led research efforts at IBM, Xerox, and VideoKen, authored over 75 papers, holds 19 US patents, and is a fellow of ACM and INAE. At DeepMind, he champions technologies like Gemini Nano and Matryoshka model architectures, ensuring AI scales efficiently from supercomputers to smartphones.

Gupta firmly believes that AI should augment human capabilities rather than replace them, empowering billions, especially underserved communities, to access transformative tools in health, agriculture, science, and other fields.

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After a game-changing stint at MakeMyTrip, leading the company’s AI initiatives, Narasimha M has recently taken on a new chapter as the head of data science at Myntra. Known for turning complex data problems into elegant, real-world solutions, Narasimha’s work has been instrumental in reshaping how millions of Indians discover and plan their travel.

At MakeMyTrip, he spearheaded the development of intelligent recommendation engines, real-time pricing models, and personalised travel experiences that made the platform smarter with every click. From optimising ad spend to predicting user intent across the booking journey, his AI systems drove both top-line growth and customer delight.

What sets Narasimha apart is his rare blend of technical depth and product intuition. He doesn’t just build models, he builds impact. A strong advocate for explainable AI and ethical model deployment, he’s often seen mentoring young data scientists, promoting the importance of context over complexity.

Now at Myntra, Narasimha is poised to bring this same magic to fashion tech, where style meets science, and personalisation is the new runway.

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NR Narayana Murthy, co-founder of Infosys and a pioneering figure in India’s tech landscape, has emerged as a thoughtful voice on artificial intelligence. Known for his clarity and realism, Murthy warns against overhyping AI in India, urging a focus on true innovation over buzzwords. He views AI as a powerful tool to augment human productivity, rather than replace it, and utilises tools like ChatGPT to streamline his work.

Murthy laid the foundation for Infosys to evolve into a global technology services leader with the capability to embrace and invest in emerging technologies like artificial intelligence. Under his early leadership, Infosys established a strong technological and ethical base that enabled it to later integrate AI into key service areas such as automation, customer support and data analytics

Murthy emphasises that AI will lead to job transformation, not destruction, creating new roles in complex problem-solving. He also advocates integrating AI education into university curricula to future-proof the workforce. At public forums, he consistently reminds audiences that while AI is valuable, the human mind remains the most powerful instrument.

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With over 23 years of experience under his belt, Nikhil Malhotra serves as the chief innovation officer and global head of AI and emerging technologies at Tech Mahindra. He is also a World Economic Forum AI fellow, actively contributing to conversations on responsible AI and quantum ethics. A researcher at heart, Malhotra leads both the research direction and the business growth of AI and quantum computing within Tech Mahindra.

Malhotra has received numerous accolades, including the Innovation Congress Award for India’s Most Innovative Leader in 2020, 2021 and 2023. He is also a TEDx speaker and the author of the bestselling book ‘Courage: The Journey of an Innovator’. One of his standout contributions is Project Indus, Tech Mahindra’s Indic language LLM launched in 2021.

Malhotra holds a Master’s degree in computing with a specialisation in distributed computing from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. A passionate physicist, Malhotra lives in Pune with his wife Shalini and their sons, Angad and Rudra.

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Pragya Misra is OpenAI’s first employee in India, shaping the intersection of AI, policy, and society. Appointed in April 2024, she charges ahead, leading public policy and partnerships to bring OpenAI’s vision of safe and inclusive AI to the world’s second-largest ChatGPT user base.

Before OpenAI, Misra led public affairs at Truecaller, collaborating extensively with government, civil society, media, and investors to strengthen digital trust in India. Earlier, she was WhatsApp’s first hire in India, managing communications during major rollouts and misinformation crises, helping double its user base in the country.

She also co-founded a startup, holds an MBA from the International Management Institute (2012), and earned a Diploma in Bargaining and Negotiations from LSE, besides a commerce degree from Delhi University.

At OpenAI, she serves as the bridge between India’s digital ecosystem and AI’s global frontiers, advocating for affordable token pricing, multilingual tools, and AI applications tailored to sectors such as agriculture, education, and healthcare.

Misra’s influence extends beyond policy corridors. She hosts The Pragyaan Podcast, is a heartfulness meditation trainer, and was among India’s top‑ranked amateur golfers, representing the country internationally.

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Prayank Swaroop is an investor at Accel, focusing on cybersecurity, developer tools, marketplaces, and SaaS. He has leveraged his diverse experience from previous roles at Adobe and Standard Chartered Bank, where he worked across engineering, product marketing, pre-sales, and product management. Swaroop holds degrees from IIT Delhi and the Indian School of Business.

Known for his passion for coding, Swaroop actively builds practical products and prototypes using tools like Jupyter notebooks, Django, Supabase and Llama, although he prefers backend development over frontend technologies. Despite a demanding schedule engaging with founders, he enjoys hands-on product experimentation.

Swaroop values the skill of prioritisation, recognising the challenge of balancing numerous important tasks within a limited time. He advocates empowering teams and focusing on asking the right questions rather than micro-managing, continually refining his approach to effective leadership.

Outside of work, Swaroop humorously envisions innovations that blend utility with lifestyle—for instance, clothing that burns calories when worn. Based in the Bay Area, Swaroop contributes significantly to Accel’s portfolio and its evolving focus on emerging technologies in AI, cybersecurity, and SaaS.

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At a time when AI is no longer confined to research labs and boardroom presentations but is becoming part of everyday conversations and chai breaks, Puneet Chandok is leading the charge in making AI accessible in India. Now heading Microsoft India and South Asia, Chandok has been quietly pushing AI into daily life, through partnerships with over 500 Indian companies and supporting language models that work across 20 Indian languages.

Since joining Microsoft in 2023, he’s focused on using AI not as a buzzword, but as a practical tool that helps organisations work smarter and people connect more meaningfully with technology. Calling 2025 the year of AI agents, he is optimistic about a future where AI doesn’t merely assist, but understands and collaborates.

Chandok believes in leading with empathy and from the heart. With a career spanning over 23 years, he has previously worked with companies like AWS, McKinsey and IBM, and now chairs the CII AI Council and sits on NASSCOM’s executive council.

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Sanjay Nath and Karthik Reddy founded Blume in 2011. Sectorally, he focuses on enterprise/SaaS investments and also oversees Blume’s go-to-market platform initiatives. Nath has overseen investments in some of Blume’s leading portfolio companies, such as Grey Orange Robotics, Lambdatest, Locus, PixxelSpace, Yulu, Dataweave, Tricog, Sprinto, Minjar (acquired by Nutanix), Agaralabs (acquired by Coinbase) and TapChief (acquired by Unacademy), amongst others. He also represents Blume on the boards of Arka Venture Labs and the Draper Venture Network.

Nath’s stints at Sun Microsystems, PwC, IBM Global Services (all in Silicon Valley), Loxodrome and Mumbai Angels have given him a breadth of experience across the US and India in management consulting, product management and early-stage investing.

Nath is an alumnus of BITS Pilani and UCLA Anderson School of Management and divides his time between San Francisco and Mumbai.

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Santhosh Kumar, president and managing director of Texas Instruments (TI) India since 2013, is a driving force behind the country’s semiconductor and AI ecosystem. With over 20 years at TI, Kumar has overseen pivotal growth in analogue and embedded processing, most notably in ADAS (autonomous-driving systems) and video solutions during his Dallas tenure. In India, he’s led end‑to‑end chip development spanning industrial, automotive, communications, and consumer tech.

Known for championing engineer development, Kumar spearheads initiatives like TI’s WiSH mentorship programme for women and deep collaborations with top institutes such as IITs and IISc. He also advocates for India’s semiconductor potential, highlighting how AI is driving personalised chip design and positioning the nation for a $400 billion ESDM future.

Kumar’s leadership style is both visionary and hands‑on, whether advancing EV powertrain chips or nurturing India’s next‑generation tech talent.

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Sreekanth Menon leads the AI/ML practice for Genpact Analytics and oversees the delivery of global projects. He brings over 20 years of innovation and industry expertise to his role, guiding strategy, business transformation, product development, and delivering analytical solutions.

Menon has developed and launched over 50 advanced analytics solutions in the global market. He has collaborated closely with Fortune 500 clients to create a significant impact on their businesses by enabling innovative AI-driven solutions and practices.

His focus is on building competencies in AI ecosystems, such as machine learning, NLP/text mining, and computer vision, while nurturing new capabilities. Moreover, he develops, mentors, and guides a global team to deploy complex AI/ML models and capabilities at scale, fostering engagement and employee growth.

Before joining Genpact, Menon was responsible for developing analytics engines, establishing virtual captive teams, and building big data analytics platforms. He also led a large analytics team at Symphony Marketing Solutions. He joined Genpact in February 2010 as part of the company’s acquisition of Symphony Marketing Services.

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Sridhar Vembu, the chief scientist at Zoho Corporation, is one of India’s most respected tech entrepreneurs. He co-founded Zoho in 1996 and served as CEO from 2000 to 2024, leading the company to become India’s largest software product firm.

Under his leadership, Zoho introduced its in-house large language model and launched Zia, a suite of AI agents and a no-code builder platform, to automate tasks like HR, accounting, and customer support.

In 2025, he transitioned to the role of chief scientist, focusing on deep-tech research and AI development. Vembu is known for his unconventional yet deeply principled approach to business_, emphasising humility, contentment, and self-reliance over hypergrowth. Under him, Zoho adopted unique strategies in hiring and training talent from rural India, building world-class products entirely in-house, and choosing customer satisfaction over aggressive marketing.

Vembu has also championed rural development and tech decentralisation, setting up offices and training centres in non-urban areas. His move into AI R&D reflects a continued commitment to building indigenous, future-focused technologies grounded in long-term thinking and inclusive progress.

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Vijay Guntur, with over 30 years at HCLTech, sits at the intersection of innovation and execution as the company’s global CTO and head of ecosystems. From spearheading GenAI-driven service transformation with platforms like AI Force to building silicon-to-cloud solutions that push India’s semiconductor and AI engineering ambitions, Guntur’s influence spans deeply across industries and borders.

He leads HCLTech’s global centres of excellence (CoE) across AI, data engineering, IoT, IT/OT, and software engineering, creating hubs that accelerate time to market for G2000 clients. He also heads initiatives like AI Foundry and HCLTech’s global AI Labs, spaces where enterprises can co-create, consult, and experience GenAI in action. Under his leadership, CloudSMART has become a key cloud modernisation enabler for clients worldwide.

An alumnus of BITS Pilani and the University of Chicago Booth, Guntur brings together hardcore tech acumen and strategic foresight. His focus on responsible AI, AI-at-the-edge (physical AI), robotics, and cyber-physical systems makes him a crucial architect of India’s AI‑powered digital future.

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Vishal Dhupar, managing director for South Asia at NVIDIA, plays a key role in driving the widespread adoption of accelerated computing and AI in India.

A passionate advocate for the power of artificial intelligence, Dhupar actively contributes to various organisations and advisory bodies, such as the CII and IDGS, and is an active member of the World Economic Forum’s AI Advisory Council in India. Prior to his tenure at NVIDIA, Dhupar held senior leadership positions at industry giants including Symantec, Autodesk and Sun Microsystems, driving growth and market expansion.

At NVIDIA, Dhupar is currently responsible for overseeing all aspects of the company’s business operations, including sales, marketing, operations, and channels, in India and the South Asian economies. He is responsible for developing and maintaining relations with government, public institutions, and industry representative bodies, and serves as the single point of leadership for NVIDIA.

With a strong belief in the power of AI for India and AI for all, he champions the philosophy of leveraging AI to tackle the most complex challenges across industries.

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Social Sector

Ambassador Amandeep Singh Gill stands at the confluence of diplomacy and technology, representing the world’s collective voice on digital and AI governance. Appointed as the United Nations secretary-general’s envoy on technology, he plays a crucial role in shaping global conversations around responsible, inclusive and ethical use of technology, particularly in artificial intelligence.

With a distinguished background as an Indian diplomat and technologist, Gill brings a unique combination of geopolitical insight and technical acumen to the table.

Gill has been a key architect of global AI frameworks, co-chairing the UN secretary-general’s high-level panel on digital cooperation and leading the International Digital Health and AI Research Collaborative (I-DAIR). His work has consistently focused on ensuring that AI and emerging technologies do not deepen existing inequalities but instead become tools for empowerment across nations, especially in the Global South.

Hailing from India’s diplomatic corps, Gill’s early engagement with nuclear disarmament and internet governance shaped his approach to tech diplomacy—rooted in equity, human rights, and international cooperation. As the UN envoy, he works across governments, private sectors and civil society to align digital progress with the UN’s sustainable development goals.

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Geetha Manjunath, founder, CEO and CTO of Bengaluru-based Niramai Health Analytix, harnesses artificial intelligence to revolutionise breast cancer detection. With a PhD in AI from IISc and an MBA from Kellogg, her 25-year career spans pioneering AI research at Hewlett-Packard Labs and Xerox, where she led data analytics innovation before charting a new course into healthcare.

Niramai’s flagship Thermalytix technology, radiation-free, portable, and privacy-first, combines thermal imaging with proprietary AI to non-invasively detect early-stage breast cancer, even in women under 45. It’s US FDA and CE‑approved, backed by clinical trials, and has screened over 2.8 lakh women across 200 hospitals.

Her personal connection is profound: losing loved ones to breast cancer motivated her to create a solution rooted in empathy and scientific rigour. An inventor with over 16 US patents and numerous awards, from the CSI Gold Medal to Forbes’ Top 20 Self‑Made Women, Geetha blends deep‑tech brilliance with heartfelt purpose. Whether in labs or remote villages, her AI-driven vision embodies innovation with compassion.

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Himanshu Gupta, the visionary co-founder and CEO of ClimateAi, is leading the charge in harnessing artificial intelligence to tackle the pressing challenges posed by climate change. His company empowers businesses and nations to adapt their food and water supply chains, ensuring resilience in an uncertain future.

With an impressive background that includes collaborating with notable figures like former US Vice President Al Gore and Lord Nicholas Stern, Gupta has made significant contributions as the lead emissions modeller for India during the pivotal Paris Discussions. His remarkable work earned him the highest civilian honour from the Vice President of India for his home state, and he has been recognised as one of Tech Insider’s most influential figures in artificial intelligence worldwide.

Gupta’s thought leadership is featured across prestigious platforms, including Stanford Social Innovation Review. As a co-author of a groundbreaking book focused on India’s low-carbon economy, he is shaping the conversation around sustainable development. With both an MBA and an MSc from Stanford University’s esteemed School of Business and Engineering, Gupta is not only an industry leader but also a trailblazer in the pursuit of a more sustainable world.

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Kiran Mazumdar Shaw is a pioneering first-generation entrepreneur and globally recognised business leader with over four decades of transformative impact in the biotechnology sector. She began her biotech journey in 1978 from her garage in India, driven by a vision to make healthcare more affordable and accessible.

As the executive chairperson of Biocon and Biocon Biologics, she has led the company to the forefront of innovation in biopharmaceuticals. Under her leadership, Biocon has strategically integrated AI across various domains, including early-stage drug discovery, manufacturing optimisation through predictive analytics, AI-driven personalised medicine and enterprise-level forecasting and operations.

In July 2024, through the Biocon Foundation, she spearheaded a collaboration with the Indian Institute of Science to launch Aarogya Aarohan, a multi-centre AI-based oral cancer screening initiative designed for early detection in low-resource settings. Shaw has received prestigious national honours, including the Padma Bhushan, and has also been recognised internationally. She continues to break barriers in biotech, steering Biocon toward future growth grounded in ethical and inclusive technology.

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For over three decades, Perumal Vivekanandan has been a pioneering force at the intersection of traditional knowledge and modern technology. As executive director of SEVA, Madurai, Vivekanandan has documented over 8,000 grassroots innovations and helped register four indigenous livestock breeds, making him a champion of both biodiversity and local ingenuity. His work has spanned AI-informed ethnoveterinary practices, sustainable agriculture, and tech-enabled knowledge dissemination, inspiring rural communities to integrate ancestral wisdom with contemporary solutions.

A key figure in the Honey Bee Network, he mentored innovation ecosystems long before AI became a buzzword. His accolades, including the Jamnalal Bajaj Award and the World Technology Network Finalist recognition, celebrate his efforts to democratise science and technology. In an era of rapid digital disruption, Vivekanandan remains a vital voice proving that innovation doesn’t only come from labs, it also lives in fields, forests, and the collective memory of rural India.

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Dr Satish Jeevannavar is a physician, ex-army medical corps officer, and an alumnus of IIM Bangalore with over 25 years of experience in scaling startups in primary healthcare, mHealth, pharma and life science strategy consulting in India, across APAC and emerging markets. He launched the mHealth services with a leading telecom partner across 23 circles (2015-16). Dr Jeevannavar was instrumental in scaling 0-60 primary care clinics across five states, launching India’s first OPD insurance product and the Senior Citizen Independent Home Project in Bangalore (2010-15).

He is also the founder and CEO of Ai Health Highway, a med-tech startup from FSID/IISC. The company has won several competitions, including the Top 24 Maharashtra Startup Challenge 2025, Leap to Unicorn Season 2, Phix.Ai Public Health Tech Challenge 2024, and PHC Tech Challenge 2021. It is also one of the 27 most promising ML startups selected for Amazon’s AWS ML Elevate 2022 program.

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From pioneering software engineer to taking on the role of CEO of Wadhwani AI, Shekar Sivasubramanian has spent nearly four decades building AI that truly matters.

A mechanical engineering graduate from IIT Bombay and seasoned researcher at Carnegie Mellon University for 20 years, Shekar now leads efforts to deploy AI solutions across India’s health, agriculture, and education sectors.

Under his leadership, Wadhwani AI has developed over 25 real-world AI applications, including tools like ‘Shishu Maapan’ to help ASHA health workers track newborn growth, and pest-management apps used by over 100,000 farmers

“AI is the least important part of AI problem-solving,” he says, urging a problem-first approach that is grounded in local realities. He adds, “If AI works in India, it can work anywhere,” highlighting India’s diverse data environment as a unique testing ground.

Wadhwani AI, under Shekar’s watch, is one of the few AI organisations working directly with government ministries, a testament to its focus on embedding ethical AI into public systems. With over 250 staff and counting, his mission is clear: applying AI at scale to benefit millions in the developing world. Rooted in research yet driven by impact, Shekar Sivasubramanian is not just an AI leader but an architect of AI for the public good.

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You might call him a “storyteller who codes”, but that description barely scratches the surface of Tanuj Bhojwani’s unique impact on India’s AI narrative. Armed with a chemical engineering degree from IIT Bombay and liberal arts training from Ashoka University and Young India Fellowship, Bhojwani bridges the gap between deep tech and human insight.

As the former head of People+AI, an independent initiative under EkStep, he quietly shaped India’s grassroots AI transformation. Bhojwani believes that “solutions must originate locally,” noting that village-level problems demand AI crafted by Indians for Indians. Under his leadership, People+AI built an open use case repository to catalogue and scale AI solutions for India-specific challenges.

He’s co-authored The Art of Bitfulness with Nandan Nilekani, a calm guide for navigating the digital today.

Beyond writing and speaking, his work at iSPIRT and the Digital Public Goods Alliance reflects a deep commitment to ethical AI in areas like digital identity, payments, data protection, and drones.

Currently, Bhojwani, who founded Sthaan.ai, is working directly with businesses to achieve their AI transformation goals. He believes that AI transformation must shift from being a huge leap of faith to a series of well-thought-out, measurable experiments.

Bhojwani’s team diagnoses challenges within organisations and builds bespoke tools and processes using AI. This hands-on approach allows for grounded, effective implementation of AI solutions that drive real change and don’t die as Pilots or PoCs.

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Vivek Seshadri is a principal researcher at Microsoft Research India and co-founder of Karya, a platform focused on providing ethical and dignified digital work to underserved rural communities. With a PhD in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University and a BTech from IIT Madras, his academic work has centred on efficient computer architecture, particularly DRAM-based memory systems.

At Microsoft Research, he is part of the Technology for Emerging Markets group, combining deep technical expertise with a mission to drive social impact. He helped launch Project Karya within Microsoft, which evolved into a broader effort to deliver fair wages and inclusive AI participation through crowd-based tasks tailored for low-connectivity regions. Seshadri highlights issues such as data worker rights, mental health safeguards, and royalty-based compensation models, pushing the discourse on ethical data labour.

Under his leadership, Karya has become a model for responsible AI deployment rooted in Indian linguistic and cultural contexts. Seshadri has also contributed to widely cited research in computer systems, including innovations like Ambit and ChargeCache. Known for his thoughtful approach to technology and equity, he continues to bridge the gap between cutting-edge research and real-world social transformation.

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Digital Public Infrastructure

In a country where linguistic diversity is both a richness and a challenge, Amitabh Nag has emerged as a key architect of India’s multilingual AI transformation. As the CEO of Bhashini under the MeitY’s Digital India initiative, Nag has overseen a platform that processes over six million translation requests a day, bridging communication across more than 22 Indian languages and handling around 300 million monthly translations.

With a tech career spanning four decades in various roles at TCS, HP, Coforge and beyond, Nag brought extensive experience to government service when he took charge of Bhashini in March 2023.

Under his leadership, Bhashini has built over 300 open-source AI models, delivered voice‑to‑text, translation, OCR, and speech‑to‑speech services, and even converted railway manuals into audio for the visually impaired. He has also taken on dual roles as the director of IndiaAI’s dataset platform (AIKosh) and applications development initiatives to further national AI infrastructure

Nag’s work is more than technology; it’s an unwavering push for digital inclusion, cultural connection, and linguistic equity.

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81. Nandan Nilekani

Co-Founder and Chairman at Infosys & EkStep Foundation

Expertise: Identity Systems, Policy & AI, Advocacy

Nandan Nilekani’s impact on India’s digital transformation is vast and deeply personal. Best known for co-founding Infosys and leading the creation of Aadhaar as the founding chairman of UIDAI, Nilekani’s work has fundamentally reshaped how over a billion Indians access identity and services. From building global software systems to spearheading the EkStep Foundation, an initiative that uses technology to improve early learning, his vision seamlessly blends innovation with inclusion.

In 2023, he was appointed co-chair of the G20 Task Force on digital public infrastructure, further solidifying his role as a global voice on technology for development. In 2014, he won The Economist Social and Economic Innovation Award for his leadership of India’s Unique Identification initiative (Aadhaar).

An IIT Bombay alumnus, he’s received the Joseph Schumpeter Prize in 2005, the Padma Bhushan in 2006, and several global honours. He’s also the author of ‘Imagining India: Ideas for the New Century’ and the co-author of ‘Rebooting India: Realising a Billion Aspirations’ and ‘The Art of Bitfulness: Keeping Calm in the Digital World’. For Nilekani, AI is not just about intelligence; it is also about a contribution to the infrastructure.

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Pawan Goenka is a distinguished industry veteran with a career spanning several decades across diverse sectors, from automotive to space. An alumnus of IIT Kanpur, Cornell University and Harvard Business School, Goenka began his professional journey at General Motors’ R&D centre before returning to India in the early 1990s to lead transformative innovation at Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M).

At M&M, he expanded the R&D infrastructure from a modest five-acre, 150-person setup to a world-class facility covering 200 acres with over 3,000 employees. His leadership resulted in benchmark products like the Scorpio SUV, earning him the moniker ‘Scorpio Man’, and positioning Mahindra as a respected global automotive brand. He also served as chairman of SsangYong Motor Company until its divestment in 2022.

Currently, as chairperson of IN-SPACe, Goenka is driving India’s space sector forward, fostering private sector participation and crafting policies that promote collaboration between startups, industries and ISRO. He played a pivotal role in shaping the Indian Space Policy 2023, advancing indigenous satellite technology and research capabilities. His vision emphasises building a self-reliant, innovation-driven space ecosystem to elevate India as a global leader.

A recipient of Padma Shri, Goenka has received numerous other prestigious awards recognising his outstanding contributions to the mobility industry.

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Shankar Maruwada is a leader whose three decades of experience span corporate, entrepreneurial, government and development sectors, each of which has deepened his ability to design for digital transformation at scale, with ecosystems, and for societal value.

He began his career at Procter & Gamble, where he honed skills in brand marketing, consumer behaviour, and strategy. He then co-founded Marketics, India’s first successful data analytics startup. He then joined the founding team at UIDAI, led by Nandan Nilekani, where he oversaw marketing and data analytics and coined the now-iconic name ‘Aadhaar’.

Currently, at the EkStep Foundation, he works on digital transformation for a billion people across various sectors, from education to agriculture, and from learning to earning. EkStep works at the intersection of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), AI and open networks.

An alumnus of IIT Kharagpur and IIM Ahmedabad, what sets Maruwada apart is his commitment and ability to build for billions with scalable public digital platforms that bridge sectors and stakeholders.

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Sunil Gupta, often hailed as the ‘Data Centre Man of India’, is reshaping the country’s AI and digital infrastructure from the ground up. With over three decades of experience and global recognition, Gupta’s tenure is marked by visionary leadership and relentless innovation.

At the helm of Yotta Data Services, this alumnus of Columbia University and NIT Kurukshetra has launched some of India’s most advanced hyperscale data centres and built cutting-edge platforms, including the AI/HPC-powered Shakti Cloud and Yntraa Cloud, India’s first homegrown open-source hyperscale public cloud. These innovations aren’t just about scale; they’re about sovereignty, affordability, and empowering the next generation of AI-native enterprises.

This platform offers research labs, startups and enterprises the tools to innovate and grow on a pay-per-use model. It’s a game-changer, enabling industries across various domains, such as healthcare, finance, manufacturing, and education, to leverage AI in developing transformative solutions.

From collaborating with NVIDIA to mentoring startups through the CIO Angel Network, Gupta’s mission is clear: to democratise AI access and position India as a global tech powerhouse. As the Chair of ASSOCHAM’s National Council on Data Centres and a leading voice at CII and NASSCOM, he’s not just a catalyst but also an active angel investor.

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Deeptech

Pradeep Gulipalli, the CEO of Tiger Analytics’ India operations, has been instrumental in building the company’s advanced capabilities, processes, and teams specialising in AI and analytics. A technologist by training and passion, Gulipalli’s leadership emphasises deep technical expertise combined with a strong people-first culture, fostering a collaborative environment where diverse talents unite to solve complex business challenges.

Recognised as one of India’s leading AI thought leaders and entrepreneurs, he began his career focused on research involving mathematical models and simulations of urban systems to support city planning. Over time, he transitioned these modelling and analytical skills to business decision-making and strategic planning, laying the foundation for his current work in AI-driven analytics.

Gulipalli holds a master of Science degree from the University of Texas at Austin and a BTech from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras). Under his guidance, Tiger Analytics continues to push the boundaries of AI innovation, contributing to India’s growing AI ecosystem across sectors, including insurance, MSMEs, and enterprise software.

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Sharad Sanghi is the co-founder and CEO of Neysa Networks, a next-gen AI-native cloud company launched in 2023. Sanghi, recognised as a trailblazer in India’s digital infrastructure, previously founded Netmagic. He grew it into the country’s top data centre brand, which was later acquired by NTT. Following this, he led NTT’s global data centre and submarine cable operations across four continents.

Now at Neysa, he is pioneering India’s first AI acceleration platform with Velocis (GPU-as-a-service), Overwatch (AI observability), and Aegis (AI security), enabling enterprises to build and deploy GenAI securely and independently. The company’s rapid growth, raising $50 million from Matrix, Nexus, NTTVC, and Z47, signals strong faith in his vision.

An IIT Bombay Distinguished Alumnus and Columbia University graduate, Sanghi also co-chairs CII’s data centre council and contributes to national cloud and AI policy through roles at APNIC Foundation and ASSOCHAM, continuing to shape the future of sovereign tech infrastructure.

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Sivakumar Agneeswaran is the group CEO and chairman of DataSwitch, leading a bold transformation in AI-driven data engineering. With over 23 years of industry experience, Agneeswaran is recognised for his visionary approach to building innovative solutions that empower enterprises to unlock the true potential of their data. At DataSwitch, he has been instrumental in developing an advanced low-code/no-code platform that modernises data engineering by harnessing the power of AI to streamline and solve complex data challenges.

Prior to joining DataSwitch, Agneeswaran built an illustrious career at Cognizant, culminating as vice president and global delivery leader for the data and intelligence practice in Europe, APAC, and the global life sciences sector. His expertise spans P&L management, big data, cloud services, solution development, and competency building.

Agneeswaran is celebrated for his passion for automation and for delivering strategic business outcomes to Fortune 500 clients, particularly in the insurance and financial services sectors.

A dynamic leader and mentor, Agneeswaran is dedicated to fostering innovation, continuous improvement, and high performance across diverse teams. His commitment to nurturing talent and building a culture of excellence has inspired professionals across the industry, setting new benchmarks in data and AI leadership.

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Tarun Dua is a pioneer in India’s cloud and AI/ML infrastructure space. A computer science graduate from NIT Kurukshetra, he founded E2E Networks in 2009 with the vision of building India’s first homegrown hyperscale public cloud focused on AI/ML infrastructure.

Under his leadership, E2E Networks has grown into a leading platform that powers higher education institutions, startups, enterprises, and research organisations globally. The company is recognised for offering self-service, high-performance cloud infrastructure and platform tools purpose-built for AI/ML workloads, including powerful GPU instances such as A100, H100, and 64×H100 configurations.

A strong advocate of open-source technologies and data sovereignty, Dua has guided E2E Networks to become MeitY-empanelled and NSE-listed, while enabling AI/ML-led digital transformation at scale, a once-in-a-generation opportunity for businesses and institutions to leapfrog into the future.

Prior to E2E, he held engineering and technical roles at Yahoo, GlobalLogic, ValueFirst, and Nanocast R&D. He also lectured at JMIT Radaur, gaining hands-on expertise in system architecture, high-availability infrastructure, and open-source systems.

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Kiran R is a Kaggle Grandmaster, an elite title held by only a few globally, signifying his exceptional prowess in data science and machine learning. Apart from holding the position of VP of engineering CDA at Oracle, Kiran is known for his razor-sharp problem-solving skills. He has consistently tackled some of the most challenging machine learning problems across various domains, including healthcare, finance, and computer vision.

What sets Kiran apart is not just his technical expertise but his spirit of collaboration and community contribution. With hundreds of public notebooks, kernels, and datasets shared on Kaggle, he has played a pivotal role in democratising access to advanced AI techniques. His work has become foundational learning material for thousands of aspiring data scientists, both in India and globally.

Kiran’s commitment to open science and peer learning has helped create a vibrant community of Indian data science professionals and enthusiasts. He is often seen mentoring young practitioners, conducting workshops, and engaging in forums that nurture AI talent from the grassroots. His emphasis on real-world problem solving—especially in high-impact areas like medical diagnostics and financial forecasting—demonstrates how AI can be used meaningfully and responsibly.

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Mass Media

Apart from being a legendary actor, Amitabh Bachchan has actively advocated for the ethical use of artificial intelligence in the creative industry. In recent years, he has expressed concerns about AI-driven technologies such as face mapping and digital cloning, warning against their misuse without consent.

Speaking at public forums, including the Symbiosis Film Festival, he emphasised the need for strong regulations to protect artists’ rights in the age of AI. In 2023, Bachchan partnered with generative AI platform Ikonz, allowing fans to interact with his virtual avatar. The digital representation of the actor enabled customer engagement via an interactive ‘AI Bachchan’ interface—a pioneering example of merging celebrity and AI-driven customer experience.

He has also reflected on how AI is impacting music and film, calling it both “fascinating” and “frightening”. While hosting Kaun Banega Crorepati, Bachchan even showcased AI-generated fan art, acknowledging its creative potential while highlighting concerns about its authenticity. While he is not an AI technologist, Bachchan’s engagement, through public dialogue and AI-powered media avatars, positions him as a cultural figure helping shape India’s ethical and experiential understanding of AI technology.

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Ansh Mehra’s journey into AI education started with a foundation in UX and product marketing. After working at Swiggy and Zuddl, he saw a growing need for AI-driven workflows. In response, he founded The Cutting Edge School, a platform focused on AI and automation training for enterprises.

Through this platform, Mehra has trained teams from leading organisations, including The Economic Times, Dubai Future Foundation, Lenskart, Reliance Digital, HP, and Intel. He maintains a strong presence in both India and the UAE, becoming a trusted advisor to enterprises seeking to leverage AI in their workflows.

In 2025, Mehra represented India at the Global Prompt Engineering Championship in Dubai. The competition, part of Dubai AI Week, saw over 3,800 entries from 125 countries. Mehra was one of five finalists in the video category and ranked first after the first round.

Beyond corporate training, Mehra has built a thriving online community. His YouTube channel, The Cutting Edge School, has amassed 633K subscribers and features hundreds of videos on AI, UX design, and prompt engineering. On Instagram, he engages over 220K followers with practical insights, free tutorials, and AI prompts.

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AR Rahman is a globally acclaimed composer whose work spans over 500 film scores, earning him multiple Oscars, Grammy Awards, and the Padma Bhushan. Known for blending Indian classical music with electronic production, Rahman has consistently embraced innovation, from digital recording in the 1990s to AI-assisted audio in the present day. Moreover, he established Panchathan Record Inn, AM Studios, and the AR Rahman Foundation.

In 2024, Rahman became the first Indian composer to use AI-generated voice models in a popular film song, Thimiri Yezhuda, in Lal Salaam, recreating the voices of late singers Bamba Bakya and Shahul Hameed with the consent of the singers’ families, along with fair compensation. He described the approach as a purposeful, ethical use of AI, clearly stating that it was “not a gimmick”.

Rahman remains a thoughtful voice in the global debate on AI in music. He warns against replacing human artists but believes AI can empower under-resourced creators and expand access to quality production. At 58, he continues to blend melody and machine—pioneering with principle.

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Dwarkesh Patel has quickly emerged as one of the most perceptive and articulate voices exploring artificial intelligence, science, and human progress. As the host of The Dwarkesh Podcast, he engages in long-form, in-depth conversations with some of the most influential thinkers and builders in the AI world—ranging from researchers and entrepreneurs to economists and philosophers. His unique strength lies in distilling complex, often abstract technological ideas into intellectually rich yet accessible narratives.

Patel’s background in computer science and deep curiosity about how innovation shapes the world enable him to ask thoughtful, probing questions that go far beyond surface-level discussion. His episodes are meticulously researched, and he often engages with guests who are actively shaping the future of AI—such as engineers at OpenAI, cognitive scientists, or startup founders at the frontier of AGI research.

Patel doesn’t shy away from difficult questions—be it around AI safety, alignment, existential risk, or the societal impact of automation. His conversations explore not just the “how” of AI but also the “why” and “should,” making the podcast essential listening for those trying to make sense of this transformative era.

Beyond his podcast, Patel is also a prolific writer, often sharing essays and notes that further unpack the themes discussed on his show.

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Kamal Haasan is one of Indian cinema’s most respected figures, known for pushing artistic and technical boundaries across acting, directing, and production. His career spans over 230 films, with innovations ranging from screenplay software in the 1992 film Thevar Magan to VFX and animation in Aalavandhan, which was released in 2001.

In 2024, Haasan deepened his engagement with artificial intelligence by completing a 45-day AI course in the US and visiting Perplexity AI’s San Francisco headquarters, where he met CEO Aravind Srinivas. He views AI as a tool to enhance creativity, not replace it, and has expressed interest in using AI to augment projects like Indian 3 and Thug Life.

At 70, Haasan continues to merge technology with storytelling, remaining both a cinematic legend and an advocate for thoughtful innovation. His forward-looking approach places him at the intersection of culture and computation—an actor who is unafraid to code the future.

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KrishNaik spent over 11 years working in data science and AI for companies such as Panasonic, Honeywell and EY. This experience exposed him to the lack of accessible, affordable education in AI, inspiring him to act. In 2017 and 2018, Naik began creating hands‑on YouTube tutorials aimed at simplifying complex topics in AI and data science. Each video helped him build a vibrant community of global learners.

In 2019, he co‑founded iNeuron.ai, India’s first truly affordable AI education platform. Under his leadership, iNeuron offered over 400 courses, facilitated more than 10,000 career transitions, and partnered with hundreds of industry employers. In December 2023, PhysicsWallah acquired iNeuron, expanding its reach to more students while maintaining Naik’s vision for accessible learning.

In early 2025, Naik launched KrishNaik Academy through KrishAI Technologies. Within six months, the academy trained over 1.5 million learners, supported more than 60,000 career transitions across 180 countries, and delivered millions of minutes of live and recorded training. His work has earned him recognitions such as the GitHub Star Award and an invitation to NVIDIA GTC in March 2025, where he represented the AI education community.

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MG Srinivas is a prominent Indian actor, director, and screenwriter, known for his significant contributions to the Kannada film industry.

In addition to his creative pursuits, Srinivas is at the forefront of integrating artificial intelligence into the entertainment industry. Notably, during the pan-India release of Shiva Rajkumar’s film Ghost in 2023, he experimented with AI-driven voice cloning technology. The film, also featuring Anupam Kher, received positive critical reviews and was a landmark in Srinivas’s use of AI in cinema.

Srinivas told AIM that when his team first began using AI, it started with script and screenplay writing. Gradually, they moved on to creating storyboards. Over time, they realised that when audiences watched dubbed films—like a Tamil film in Hindi or a Kannada film in Telugu—they often want to hear the original actor’s voice to preserve the film’s emotional impact. That insight led them to explore voice cloning technology.

Srinivas co-founded AI Samhitha, a company specialising in voice cloning solutions. The company is currently developing innovative technology that enables an actor’s original voice to be seamlessly retained across multiple languages.

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Prateek Arora is a screenwriter and visual artist based in India who blends speculative fiction and AI to create surreal, cinematic, and often haunting artwork. He moves between worldbuilding for screen and image-making for the internet, shaping a distinct creative voice rooted in science fiction, horror, and Indian urban life. Arora is currently VP of development at the global content studio BANG BANG Mediacorp.

Arora’s AI artworks were among the first in India to gain mass attention on a global scale. His images of cyborgs working at construction sites, amphibious rickshaws on flooded streets, floating apartment blocks above the city skyline, and spectral figures roaming Old Delhi by night reimagine the Indian city, helped catalyse the country’s AI art movement and built a cult Instagram following. Arora is widely regarded as a central figure in Indofuturism, a growing movement that imagines Indian futures untethered from colonial, Western or techno-utopian frameworks. His work has appeared in Cosmopolitan, Grazia, and WePresent, and has been covered by The Indian Express, Deccan Chronicle and The Economic Times.

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Indian rapper and musician Dilin Nair, known by his stage name Raftaar, made an announcement on Instagram that was more than ordinary. It was neither a song nor an album, but rather an app that he developed and published on GitHub.

His project, called CompCal, performs precision timing calculations for vocal compression, delay, and reverb effects, enabling music producers to calculate accurate Attack, Release, and Delay/Reverb timings based on their track’s BPM and vocal style. Platforms like Jammable are offering Raftaar’s AI-generated voice to compose music.

This project serves as inspiration for creators across all industries, illustrating how professionals can harness their domain expertise to build meaningful applications using development tools and platforms accessible today.

Raftaar’s venture into software development—alongside his music career—demonstrates how artists and professionals increasingly recognise technology as a powerful amplifier for their work. Whether through AI-assisted development, modern frameworks, or other emerging tools, creators now have unprecedented opportunities to translate their specialised knowledge into innovative solutions that enhance their craft and expand their impact.

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Santhosh Narayanan is a leading Tamil film composer known for his experimental soundtracks in films like Jigarthanda, Attakathi and Kalki 2898 AD. With a background in computer science and early work as a sound engineer, Narayanan brings a deep technical lens to music production.

In 2025, he began using the Chinese AI model DeepSeek for projects like Sikandar and Retro, cutting production time by over 60%. The model assisted with scripting and automation in Reaper DAW, which he described as a glimpse of “great times ahead for AI reasoning and GenAI”.

Narayanan believes AI should support, not replace, human creativity. While it enhances technical precision and speeds up workflows, he cautions against relying blindly or being misled by misinformation. At 42, he continues to push the boundaries of Indian film music, advocating for responsible AI integration that benefits both composers and indie creators. His openness to AI tools has resonated with indie creators and the broader tech-art community.

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Varun Mayya is a Bengaluru-based entrepreneur and AI innovator known for transforming content creation through the use of generative AI. Mayya, a computer science graduate from Manipal Institute of Technology, began his journey with startups like Jobspire and Avalon Labs. In recent years, he has focused on developing AI tools, including AutocodePro, AlphaCTR, and God in a Box, used collectively by over a million people.

He currently leads the Aeos Group, an AI-driven content studio co-founded with his wife, Achina Sirohi Mayya, which produces over 1,000 short-form videos per month using synthetic avatars, AI voice, and automated scripting. Varun pioneered this high-speed, AI-powered content model, utilising tools like ElevenLabs and ChatGPT, thereby eliminating the need for traditional filming.

Recognised among India’s top AI influencers, he’s always been vocal about responsible and creative AI adoption. Through public talks, social media, and podcasts, he continues to shape how creators and businesses embrace AI for storytelling, automation and scalable digital impact.

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