The remarks made by an ex-Googler surprised many at a time when various tech companies, tech experts, startup gurus, venture capitalists, and tech industry insiders are attempting to start an AI revolution in India. A few days ago, discordant tweets were sent by Gaurav Aggarwal, an ex-Google employee who is trying to start his own artificial intelligence startup in India named Ananas Labs. Aggarwal’s tweet reminded us that, contrary to the enthusiastic statements we frequently hear, India’s path towards artificial intelligence will not be easy.
After leaving Google to launch an AI research company in India for about seven months, Aggarwal wrote in a tweet, “Unfortunately, I have to cut-short my adventure due to various reasons.”
It turned out that Aggarwal hardly mentioned his discordant and challenging experience with AI in India thus far in his tweet. During the conversation, he shared his experiences from the past few months and outlined the major obstacles India faces in its quest to overtake the US and China in the AI race. He even went so far as to say that India’s prospects for AI technology are dismal at one point.
Since leaving Google in August of last year to launch his own AI company in India, Aggarwal claims that raising capital for the type of AI approach he is using has been his largest challenge. Although there is a lot of money available, it doesn’t seem to be enough for a business that wishes to engage in deep AI work, as OpenAI and a few other Silicon Valley firms do. Instead, as Aggarwal puts it, the funds are going to companies that are only wrapping a large language model (LLM) produced by US companies.
The forty-something Gaurav Aggarwal, an expert in machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), says, “I wish someone was willing to put money into my startup.” Aggarwal left Google in August 2023 to found his own AI research company in India. I didn’t give it my all. Aggarwal has met with dozens of venture capitalists in the last seven months.. He laments that it’s a sad thing and that he might have to give up because it’s “extremely difficult to raise capital in India.”
Before joining Google, Aggarwal worked for Ola Cabs, Snapdeal, Fashiate, and Yahoo Labs.
In the field of artificial intelligence, a lot is going on. However, according to Aggarwal, very little innovation comes from India and the majority comes from the West, China, or the United Arab Emirates. Since I am in my 40s and not the typical Indian startup founder of 20 something, I felt it was almost my duty to establish a significant AI startup in India, given my technical expertise and capabilities.
Aggarwal has a low opinion of the current AI work being done in India after his run-in with the country’s fledgling AI scene. According to him, the majority of AI startups are lacking in deep AI expertise. Before joining Google, Aggarwal worked for Ola Cabs, Snapdeal, Fashiate, and Yahoo Labs.