AI has pushed India 5 To 7 years behind

India is far behind US and China when it comes to AI talent.

• A recent study says that out of the top 300 engineers specialised in AI, India has only 8!

• Only 75% of the students from IIT Bombay got placed this year.

• TCS said they needed 81,000 people, but they could not get employees with the required skill set.

Unfortunately, most of our students use AI to replace knowledge when they should be using the AI tools to enhance their knowledge.

Beyond the top colleges, there is very little happening in Gen AI (each and every college is now launching commercial courses to attract working professionals to get upskilled, with zero focus on the existing students).

We are at standing still (shouting we are the best) - and the world is moving forward like crazy.

5-7 years behind?

In the next few months, we might be double digit years behind the AI world if we don’t wake up.

I am clearly seeing this gap when I am interviewing AI engineers. There is an issue not just with the overall quality, but the bigger challenge I see is the overall lack of enthusiasm when it comes to hacking around with Gen AI.

At entry/fresher level, things are far worse.

How do you think this gap can be fixed? What are you seeing in your workspace / conversations? Do we need to reimagine college education and integrate academia better with industry?

What’s your take?

(data source)