New Delhi: Former HCL Technologies CEO and Founder-Chairman of Sampark Foundation, Vineet Nayar, has warned that artificial intelligence (AI) will significantly disrupt the job market, potentially eliminating nearly half of existing jobs through automation. However, he also emphasised that AI-driven transformation will simultaneously create a large number of new employment opportunities.
Speaking to news agency ANI on the sidelines of the AI Impact Summit, Nayar said technological progress has historically generated new forms of employment even as older roles disappear.
“Two things are very evident — 50% of the jobs are going to go away because they will get automated, but there will also be 50% more jobs created. The number of jobs created through technology adoption is very large,” he said.
Nayar noted that India is increasingly playing an active role in shaping global conversations around AI, particularly in defining its applications for social impact. He said India, traditionally seen as a technology follower, is now attracting global attention by contributing to discussions on responsible and inclusive AI use.
According to him, the AI Impact Summit comes at a crucial time as it could redefine how India participates in shaping the future of artificial intelligence and its societal implications.
Employment in the AI Era
Addressing concerns around employment generation, Nayar said expecting large corporations to create jobs purely for employment purposes is unrealistic, as private companies are primarily driven by profitability.
He stressed that large-scale job creation in the AI era is more likely to come from startups operating at scale, an ecosystem that the government has been actively promoting.
“The question is how we create employment in this environment, and that employment will come from mass-scale startups,” he said.
Data Ownership and India’s AI Challenge
Nayar also highlighted concerns regarding data ownership and India’s position in the global AI ecosystem. He said India must carefully address the question of who owns user data, especially as global AI models increasingly rely on large datasets sourced from multiple markets.
He observed that globally developed Large Language Models (LLMs) currently outperform Indian models, largely because India has historically focused more on services than on building technology products.
On one hand, global AI companies are entering India and leveraging Indian data to strengthen their models. On the other hand, restricting access without developing strong domestic AI capabilities could slow technological progress, he cautioned.
Nayar called for “radical strategic thinking” to ensure India can both protect its data and accelerate the development of world-class LLMs and Small Language Models (SLMs). He added that clear policies on data ownership and incentives for domestic AI development will be critical for maintaining India’s competitive advantage in the coming decade.
Without timely action, he warned, India risks losing a major opportunity in one of the most critical technological shifts of the next ten years.
Leave a Reply