Cheap intelligence, expensive institutions: What the data really says about India

Artificial intelligence has become astonishingly cheap. India’s institutions, however, still move at the same old speed. That mismatch now sits at the heart of India’s AI story. As the year draws to a close, it feels like the right moment to pause — not to speculate about where artificial intelligence might go next, but to assess where it has already taken us.

Over the past year, much of my writing has focused on AI’s impact on jobs, energy, governance, education, and even on how it subtly changes what we count as knowledge. These were not neutral updates. They were opinions, based on data and offered openly.