India is talked about lower than 5 instances, and solely as soon as in a headline, in Mary Meeker’s 340-page Developments: Synthetic Intelligence report. But, it has been making waves within the know-how group since its launch in Could. One purpose for its reputation is that Meeker, an influential know-how analyst because the early days of the web, has launched such a report after a four-year hiatus. One other is that she presents sharp insights on the themes related to India—AI adoption, pricing, impression on the labour market, and the nation’s place in an ever-shifting AI panorama.
World unfold
The launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT kick-started the present curiosity in AI. The velocity at which ChatGPT’s customers grew was unprecedented. It took ChatGPT simply two months to succeed in 100 million customers in comparison with Instagram’s 2.5 years, WhatsApp’s 3.5 years, and Fb’s 4.5 years. Equally vital is the velocity of its worldwide attain. The ChatGPT app reached some extent the place 90% of its customers have been outdoors North America in its third 12 months, a milestone that took the web 23 years to realize.
India performed a key function—it accounts for 13.5% of world ChatGPT cell app customers as of April 2025, in comparison with the US’ 8.9%, pushed by India’s 886 million web customers, largely through smartphones. Over 153 million smartphones have been shipped in 2024 alone, based on Counterpoint Analysis. In addition to, ChatGPT helps many Indian languages, together with the highest six. India additionally accounts for six.9% of DeepSeek cell app customers, the third largest after China and Russia.
Pricing energy
Main AI platforms, together with ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, Anthropic’s Claude, and Perplexity, all supply a free tier for customers, which explains India’s share within the cell apps. The premium variations of those platforms are about $20 per thirty days, and extra superior variations might price $100 to $250 per thirty days. The pricing is world and would not take note of buying energy. (Low costs are key to capturing the Indian market. India’s telecom tariffs, for instance, are among the many world’s lowest.) For AI firms, subscription and developer API charges are key.
Nevertheless, the report factors out that the AI panorama is aggressive, with well-funded tech incumbents, rising challengers, and a rising open-source motion all vying for market share. In addition to, the efficiency hole between closed-source and open-source fashions is narrowing, placing stress on pricing energy. Whether or not this might result in telecom-style decrease prices shouldn’t be clear but.
Labor market
Mary Meeker highlighted a transparent shift in demand away from conventional IT roles towards these requiring AI expertise. Whereas AI-related IT job postings within the US elevated by 448% between January 2018 and April 2025, non-AI IT job postings declined by 9% over the identical interval. The cumulative variety of new world job titles containing AI phrases grew by 200% between Q2 2022 and Q2 2024. Past creating new titles, firms are integrating AI expertise as a core competency for his or her whole workforce.
Firms like Duolingo and Shopify state that AI use is now a “baseline expectation” and will likely be factored into hiring and efficiency evaluations. This shift is particularly vital for Indian IT providers firms, which grew by providing US tech expertise at a decrease price. The altering job market have to be mirrored of their workforce too, validating their current investments in AI coaching for workers.
AI factories
Whereas Indian IT providers firms are “right-skilling” their workers, the massive tech firms within the US are investing in “AI factories”, because the report describes the info centres. Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta spent $228 billion on CapEx in 2024, a 55% enhance year-over-year. CapEx of the Huge Six (together with Apple and Nvidia) has grown at a 21% annual charge over the past decade and now represents 15% of their whole income, up from 8% a decade in the past.
A good portion has gone into constructing hyperscale knowledge centres, quicker community infrastructure, and buying specialised {hardware} like GPUs and customized AI accelerators. They’ve additionally elevated R&D spending to 13% of revenues in 2024, up from 9% a decade in the past. This spending is fueled by immense monetary energy—these firms collectively generated $389 billion in free money circulation in 2024 and held over $443 billion in money. They’re utilizing these sources to take a position aggressively in what they see as the subsequent elementary wave of know-how. Indian firms lack this monetary capability, partly explaining the AI pessimism in India.
The 2-power race
These investments have positioned the US because the chief in AI programs, adopted by China, with each far outpacing the remainder of the world. China has dramatically accelerated its AI capabilities via nationwide initiatives like “Made in China 2025″. Chinese language AI fashions from DeepSeek, Alibaba (Qwen), and Baidu (Ernie) are quickly closing the efficiency hole with US counterparts, typically at decrease coaching prices. AI now underpins China’s nationally strategic areas, together with battlefield logistics and cyber operations, elevating US considerations.
The report quotes Microsoft’s Brad Smith, noting that China recognises that if a rustic standardizes on its AI platform, it’s going to probably depend on that platform sooner or later. The US response, due to this fact, needs to be “to not complain in regards to the competitors however to make sure we win the race forward”. Different nations are taking discover. Extra nations, together with India, are more and more pursuing “Sovereign AI” insurance policies to construct home computing capability utilizing their very own infrastructure and knowledge.
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