Gautam Adani Calls for ‘Sovereign Intelligence’, Says India Must Own Its AI Future

Gautam Adani called for India to own the complete AI ecosystem, stressing control over energy, compute and data infrastructure as key to a sovereign digital future. He linked AI leadership to energy security and domestic infrastructure, emphasising inclusive productivity and job creation.

Chairman of the Adani Group, Gautam Adani on Monday called for India to build and own the complete artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem, warning that the next era of global power will be shaped by countries that control both energy and digital infrastructure.

Addressing the annual business summit organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry in New Delhi, Adani said the world is moving into a "fractured and contested" geopolitical order where semiconductors, cloud infrastructure, AI models and energy systems are becoming instruments of strategic influence.

"The country that controls its energy will drive its industrial future. The country that controls its compute will drive its intelligence future. And the country that controls both will shape the century ahead," Adani said.

Rejecting concerns that AI will mainly eliminate jobs, Adani said India must use the technology to increase productivity, create employment and empower small businesses, farmers and workers.

"India must build AI not as a force that removes opportunity, but as a force that expands productivity, creates new jobs, empowers small businesses and gives Indians the tools to compete with the best," he said.

Drawing parallels with India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI), Adani said transformative technologies succeed when they democratise access and create opportunities at scale. "UPI did not simply move money from one account to another. It moved trust into the hands of ordinary Indians," he said, adding that AI could similarly unlock entirely new industries and business models in the country.

‘Data Has a Home and Intelligence Has a Geography’

Adani stressed that AI is no longer just about software but about ownership of the entire infrastructure stack, including energy, data centres, chips, compute systems, networks and talent.

"For too long, digital worlds have been treated as places without a map. But in this fractured age, we must realise that data has a home and intelligence has a geography," he said.

He warned that relying on foreign digital infrastructure could compromise India’s long-term strategic autonomy. "If our data is processed on distant shores, our future is being written in a language we do not own," he added.

Shift From IT Services to ‘Sovereign Intelligence’

Highlighting the changing nature of the global technology economy, Adani said the traditional IT services model is giving way to a new AI-led order where value lies in owning intelligence infrastructure and platforms.

"The old IT model wrote code for the world. The new model must build intelligence and can afford to be largely sovereign," he said.

According to Adani, the AI economy will be built on three layers — power, compute and applications — making energy infrastructure central to the digital future.

"At the foundation is energy. Without reliable, affordable and scalable power, there can be no AI revolution," he said.

Adani Group Bets Big on Energy and Data Centres

Adani highlighted the group’s ongoing investments in renewable energy and digital infrastructure, including a planned 30-gigawatt renewable energy project at Khavda in Gujarat, which he described as the world’s largest single-site renewable energy plant.

He also pointed to partnerships with Google and Microsoft for hyperscale data centre and sovereign compute projects in India.

The Adani Group has committed investments worth $100 billion towards clean energy, transmission and digital infrastructure, he said. "India must not rent the infrastructure of its intelligence future. India must build it, power it and own it on its own soil," Adani asserted.

‘The Future Does Not Arrive. It Is Built’

Reflecting on his entrepreneurial journey, Adani said he had spent decades building infrastructure projects in places many considered impossible.

"I have spent my life constructing things that did not yet exist, in places that were not yet ready," he said.

Calling AI the next major national mission, he said the coming battle for global competitiveness would be fought through infrastructure, innovation and technological capability.

"The next battle will not be fought only at our borders. It will be fought in our grids, our data centres, our factories, our classrooms, our laboratories and our minds," Adani said.

He concluded by saying that true freedom in the intelligence age would mean "the capability to power ourselves, compute for ourselves and dream for ourselves."