India’s large digital user base and low user acquisition costs provide foundation for scalable artificial intelligence products
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NEW DELHI — India’s large digital user base and low user acquisition costs provide foundation for scalable artificial intelligence products, and the first consumer AI app to reach 200 million users in India will likely be voice‑led rather than English‑prompted, a report said on Friday.
The report from venture capital firm Arkam Ventures said the country’s data depth could enable three or more AI‑native services companies built in India to scale to over $1 billion revenue within five years.
The firm forecasted that AI‑native lending platforms will originate more consumer credit than all private banks combined over the next decade.
Besides the infrastructure-related push through over $2.5 billion committed to Indian AI data centres, Indian startups would enjoy a three to four times cost advantage versus global peers and access to global revenue pools, making capital more productive, the report added.
"With over 850 million digital users in India and one of the largest developer ecosystems in the world, India is powering the growth of global AI platforms - not just as a consumer but also as a builder of AI-driven platforms," the report said.
The firm identified four pillars for India’s AI future such as population‑scale consumer AI with Indic, voice‑first design; B2B AI products; globally competitive products and AI-native services built by Indian engineering teams and indigenous infrastructure.
“AI represents one of the most important technological shifts of our time and has the potential to exponentially expand the benefits of digitisation at population scale,” said Bala Srinivasa, Managing Director at Arkam Ventures.
"Challenges in terms of GPU supply, cost of compute, and lack of indigenous AI infra are in fact opportunities being addressed by founders which is also creating fertile ground for a new generation of India focused AI consumer and enterprise startups,” he added
Rahul Chandra, Managing Director at Arkam Ventures shared his view that most interesting AI companies from India will emerge at the intersection of deep technology and large real‑world problems.