India Challenges IMF AI Economy Classification

Union Minister for Electronics and IT Ashwini Vaishnaw challenged the IMF's classification of India as a second-tier AI economy during a World Economic Forum panel in Davos. He cited Stanford rankings—India third in AI penetration and preparedness and second in AI talent—and outlined a five-layer national AI strategy plus deployment of multiple models. Vaishnaw emphasized adoption-focused, lower-cost 20–50 billion-parameter models for broad productivity gains.