India leads global AI talent acquisition, ranks top in skills: Vaishnaw

India is emerging as a global leader in artificial intelligence (AI) talent, ranking among the top countries worldwide in AI skill penetration and leading in AI talent acquisition, Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw stated in the Rajya Sabha.Citing the Stanford AI Index Report 2025, the minister said India leads the world in AI talent acquisition with an annual hiring rate of around 33 per cent. The country has also witnessed more than a threefold increase in AI talent concentration since 2016, reflecting the rapid expansion of its technology workforce.The minister highlighted that India’s AI strategy is anchored in the vision of democratising technology, with a focus on addressing India-specific challenges while creating new opportunities and employment in the AI ecosystem. AI-driven roles are expanding across multiple sectors, including information technology, manufacturing, agriculture, healthcare and governance, driving sustained demand for skilled professionals.“The Government of India recognises this and has aligned its AI initiatives in this direction. This is also reflected in global assessments about India’s AI workforce,” Vaishnaw submitted in the Upper House.
According to industry estimates shared by the minister, India’s AI talent base is expected to more than double by 2027, growing at a compound annual growth rate of about 15 per cent. India’s expanding AI capabilities are also evident in global developer participation. In 2024, India emerged as the second-largest contributor to AI projects on GitHub, accounting for 19.9 per cent of all AI-related projects worldwide.“This underscores the depth of India’s AI developer ecosystem and validates the government’s focus on large-scale AI skilling, research and innovation under the IndiaAI Mission,” the minister said.To strengthen the AI talent pipeline, the government is supporting 500 PhD scholars, 5,000 postgraduate students and 8,000 undergraduate students engaged in AI-related work. In addition, 27 IndiaAI Data and AI Labs have been established in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities through the National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT) to offer coursework in AI, data curation, annotation, data cleaning and applied data science. A further 174 ITIs and polytechnics across 27 States and Union Territories have been approved to set up additional IndiaAI Data and AI Labs.
The government is also collaborating with NASSCOM to equip learners with advanced digital skills in AI, big data and cloud computing. Courses are aligned with National Occupational Standards and the National Skills Qualification Framework, with over 500 courses and more than 2,000 digital fluency pathways available. So far, over 16.29 lakh candidates have enrolled or been trained under these programmes.To promote basic AI literacy, a free national-level foundational course titled “YUVA AI for ALL” has been launched to create mass awareness of AI technologies.According to a NASSCOM report, India has the world’s largest digitally skilled talent pool and the capacity to reskill and develop 8–10 million professionals in AI-related services by 2030.The minister said the government is adopting a whole-of-government approach to AI skilling and workforce development. Through the IndiaAI Mission and allied platforms, it is working closely with central ministries, state governments, educational institutions and industry to build a future-ready AI workforce.