“Bharat Innovates 2026” — India’s flagship innovation initiative in France showcasing the work of IIT Delhi – will lead to a tremendous boost in India’s soft power, former Solicitor General Harish Salve told NDTV today. “For the first time, we are showing India can be a supplier of technology,” he said. As for Artificial Intelligence, he said while others may develop it, India can use it to achieve end results.
In an exclusive interview, Salve, Chairman Board of Governors of IIT Delhi, who is one of the brains behind the initiative, indicated that the West may soon wake up to Indian prowess in technology.
Citing an example, he said one of the Memorandums of Understandings that came out of this project was between a professor of the IIT and a manufacturer of aircraft engines in France.
The IIT professor’s startup “has been taken on by a major manufacturer of aircraft engines, who builds aircraft engines also for various purposes in France and their (IIT’s) AI is being used for developing and monitoring these engines,” he said.
“Can you imagine? It is such a reverse now. People say that we are dependent on their technology. If Indian AI is used for their engine, they will become dependent on our technology. So can you imagine the soft power this will bring?” Salve said.
Speaking of the latest use of AI in educating people, he said earlier, people were taught to develop aircraft engines. Now AI can be taught to develop it. “You are taught how to use AI to design an aircraft engine… let the others invest their billions to create the capacity for Artificial Intelligence. We (India) will use it,” he said.
The deals that were a spin-off from the Bharat Innovates programme, while not worth multi-billion dollars, can still be the “building blocks for the future of India.” Salve said.
Going forward, this programme, he said, can even be developed into a brand — Bharat Innovates — which could be an annual feature.
“We will have it in cities in India and outside India. Every year, we select 100, 120 new people and showcase them to the world. And this will be our little effort. These people have braved all the odds in India, have come up, have shown their entrepreneurial spirit, have used their minds,” he said.
“There’s so much going on in India, like the tinkering labs, which the Prime Minister has prevailed upon everybody to set up in schools and colleges. In India, we have to go back to the stage where we show the world the Indian mind is at another level,” he added.
The potential of such a project, he indicated, is immense. It could feature cements with a 40 per cent less carbon footprint and Grade Five bullet-proof vests. “Plus, you have high tech in areas of deep science, of AI computing, of space, of satellite,” he said.
