Countries that shape ideas shape the future — can India step up?

Without long-term funding for social inquiry, India risks losing control of its own technological story.

The India-AI Impact Summit 2026 started on February 16, and over the next few days, we can expect multiple headline-grabbing announcements. While conversations will focus on human-centric approaches, responsible innovation, and inclusive growth and development, there should also be a focus on how we can strengthen our intellectual ecosystem to better understand the effects of technologies like AI on society. A crucial gap persists in funding in-depth knowledge about the impact and consequences of new technologies.

With the advent of AI, and rapid technological developments in India, it is essential to understand the effects of deploying such technologies on social dimensions such as governance, labour, inequality, and growth. Without a discussion on how to sustain long-term investment in research, India risks advancing technologically but lagging intellectually. An all-round approach to understanding AI is needed to position ourselves as leaders, and a crucial step towards achieving that is through a strong intellectual foundation. 

One solution could be the creation of a mechanism that invests in ecosystem building and research to help position India as an intellectual leader in the Global South. The time for India to step up is now as the world undergoes major political, social, and economic changes.

What are the gaps?

As of 2025, India’s gross expenditure on R&D (GERD) is estimated to be just 0.6-0.7% of GDP. This is far below the global average and significantly lower than major global economies such as the United States (3.4%), China (2.6%), Israel (6.3%), or South Korea (5%). Out of the overall R&D allocation in the Union Budget, only a fraction is directed toward institutions like the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) and similar bodies that focus on social impact, inequality, and labour, and on researching solutions to complex social issues that will determine a progressive and prosperous future. 

These agencies also lack the support of private sector funding and are entirely dependent on government grants, often divided across state governments. This leaves them limited in scale, capacity, and independent decision-making, and leads to an overall gap in the intellectual capacity needed to understand what society requires. 

A call for future-focused giving

If India is to be a leader in the Global South, we must invest in building the institutions and culture of discourse that can shape how technology, labour, and society interact. Without doing so, India risks losing out on shaping its own narrative, and positioning itself as an influential leader. The way forward is by building a long-lasting legacy of future-focused giving.

Philanthropists, high-net-worth individuals, and private corporations must step up by investing in social research through long-term funding, partnerships with academic institutions, think-tanks, and civil society organisations. The creation of a future-focused, independent fund dedicated to knowledge and impact could help make India a global thought leader and a co-creator of international frameworks and ethical standards. The question is not whether we can afford to do this — it’s whether we can afford not to.

Shape the future

We need to rethink how research is traditionally done. Instead of prioritising only technological efficiency or externally defined agendas, the focus must shift toward socially rooted inquiry — work shaped with communities, stakeholders, and practitioners, and translated into policies built on original, locally grounded evidence.

At its core, this is about intellectual sovereignty — we need to move away from ‘on India’ and ‘about India’ to ‘from India’. If we are serious about becoming a global leader, we must invest in our own questions, our own experts, and our own institutions. Domestic capital for domestic research is not just a funding model; it is a demonstration of confidence in our capacity to generate knowledge that we and the world need.

Countries that shape ideas shape the future. By committing serious resources, India can move from being a consumer of global frameworks to a producer of them — telling its own story, setting its own priorities, and leading rather than following in the years ahead.

Ameera Rao is a consultant at Aapti Institute. 

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.