Do we really have competitors?

What China and America fail to realise is that Maharashtra intends to be the AI Capital of India and will pull this off as soon as it figures out how to build roads, connect bridges and get public transport to function efficiently. Representation Pic/Satej Shinde

Much of January was given over to handwringing in American tech circles, as China appeared to run circles around the former's claims of AI superiority. For those too busy following stories about the Bombay police arresting innocent men, the noise was generated by a startup called DeepSeek, which prompted American investors to question bloated valuations of companies. A massive fall in stock prices followed, along with a thousand columns on whether America was losing a battle few other countries seemed to care about.

I was bored by the whole thing because I already knew who would win that fight: MITRA - The Maharashtra Institution for Transformation. I had never heard of it until recently but, then again, I am only human, and everyone knows our state government works faster than the average mind can comprehend. Apparently, MITRA was established along the lines of that other world-beating organisation, NITI Aayog. It may be hard to find a single person in India who can accurately describe what NITI Aayog does, but that shouldn't stop us from being excited about MITRA. I admit not knowing what it does either, but its plans seem solid, along with its goal of a one trillion-dollar economy for Maharashtra by 2028. This means everyone's life is set to change a mere three years from now.

It sometimes feels as if that trillion-dollar figure appears every other week, from some government source or minister, but that is precisely why I believe it. If something is mentioned innumerable times, it can't possibly be untrue. It's like saying someone has graduated with a degree in Entire Political Science. There may be no proof to be found, but we all know it's a fact.

When it comes to these financial goals, the only fly in the ointment that I can foresee is a shifting goalpost. Here's how I see it rolling out. First, we will each get R15 lakh in our individual bank accounts (a goalpost that has shifted multiple times too). Next, we will all invest that large sum into schemes that lead to more wealth for us and, eventually, for the country at large. It's a foolproof plan that the rest of the world has failed to acknowledge, choosing to focus on unrelated data like rising unemployment levels instead.

What China and America fail to realise is that Maharashtra intends to be the AI Capital of India and will pull this off as soon as it figures out how to build roads, connect bridges and get public transport to function efficiently. This may not be possible by 2028, because we have only been trying to get this done for half a century, but dreaming big is important even if the dream has no chance of coming true. Think of it as ‘fake it and, at some point, you may probably make it'.

MITRA has made a few great suggestions already, such as competitive power tariffs, and job-ready certification courses, both of which are to help us win the AI race in some mysterious way. It also suggests offering IT firms free access to large, high-quality, public datasets for the first two years, which was a surprise because I assumed all possible datasets were already freely available. What else could explain everyone receiving 100 spam calls a day, from companies that knew everything about their lives?

It is also unfair that China is being touted as a world leader in renewable energy, just because it announces capacity goals and meets them ahead of its deadlines. So what if fossil fuels now make up less than half of its total installed generation capacity? It doesn't mean India is lagging, because energy is energy even if it isn't necessarily clean. Anyone who lives in Bombay long enough knows we generate a lot of energy, right through the year. Look at our coal-fired power plants, relentless smog, and AQI levels for proof.

I think it's time we stopped looking at China as a competitor and start talking about how we're better on many fronts. They may beat us when it comes to infrastructure, technological expertise, or manufacturing, among other things, but we have the world's tallest statue, which isn't something to be sneered at. We also have a huge number of engineering graduates, most of whom are supposedly unemployable, which means they will eventually turn to entrepreneurship and carry millions of Indians out of poverty over the coming years. America and China will soon be left in the dust, and I can feel it.

When he isn't ranting about all things Mumbai, Lindsay Pereira can be almost sweet. He tweets @lindsaypereira
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The views expressed in this column are the individual's and don't represent those of the paper.