Adani Group Chairman Gautam Adani addresses the CII Annual Business Summit 2026. (ANI Photo)
Countries need to be self-sufficient in meeting their energy needs and to develop their digital infrastructure independently in today’s volatile geopolitical environment, according to Gautam Adani, chairman of the Adani Group. Labeling energy and digital security as the ‘twin foundation of national power’, he added that supply chains across industries are now being redesigned around national interest.
Earmarking AI as an important tool for future development, he said companies need to harness the new technology and use it to their benefit. “…not surprisingly, compute will now become the next control layer. Chips, clouds, and AI models are no longer just commercial assets. They are factors of national intelligence,” Adani said at the Confederation of Indian Industries’ Annual Business Summit held in New Delhi.
“The next battle will not be fought only at our borders. It will be fought on our grids, our data centers, our factories, our classrooms, our laboratories, and our minds. And freedom will mean capability, Adani added.
For example, he stated that while the Indian IT services sector built massive businesses and generated massive employment by serving intelligence rather than owning it and writing code for other people, the new AI age instead rewards those who own the data and have the computational capabilities. “The old IT model wrote code for the world, the new model must build intelligence.”
While the US and China have already made progress in staking their control over the new technology, India would need to build capacity fast enough to match demand. “India’s advantage is simple. Everything we build will already have demand waiting for it. The task before us is to build the capacity that can keep pace with the demand,” Adani said.
The AI wave would be similar to the explosion created by the disruption created in the telecom sector over the past decade, which has reduced the cost of mobile data and has made it accessible to the masses. “AI will create a similar surge, but this surge will be far more power-hungry. Data centre capacity that is expected to reach five gigawatts by 2030 could rise to nearly 75 gigawatts by 2047. That is why India must prepare now,” he added.
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However, he noted that India must take a different path to the ones taken by the US or China. “…India has something uniquely powerful because we are not building for abstract futures. We are building for a living, rising, demanding India, for households moving up, cities expanding outward, factories coming alive, vehicles turning electric, and millions of small businesses waiting to scale. India’s advantage is simple: everything we build will already have demand waiting for it,” Adani said.
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Adani then went on to oppose the notion that the AI wave would lead to job cuts. “I reject this story entirely. India must not import fear from the Western world. A country can limit its own future not only by a lack of capability but also by accepting someone else’s assumptions as truth. 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,” Adani said.
