New Delhi: As the AI race drives massive investments in data centres and Large Language Models (LLM), how is the technology percolating down to the ground? What does AI mean for the residents of a village in Uttar Pradesh, for example, and how is it beginning to shape their everyday lives?
Artificial Intelligence and its impacts are often discussed in boardrooms and global capitals, but its impact is far too tangible across villages in India. That is what The Economist finds when it goes on the ground in Nagepur, Uttar Pradesh.
“It is a warm afternoon in Nagepur and Bahadur Kumar is working at a power loom. Opposite the workshop stands his two-storey, half-finished house. Outside it are five goats, a motorbike, his wife and his 22-year-old son, Karan, who explains that he is busy doing a science degree at a local university while preparing for exams for a government job.
What coaching does he go to and where does he have his ‘doubt-clearing sessions’? Youtube and ChatGPT. AI has reached Nagepur due to India’s rapidly developing data networks, which, in 2026 have become a force to reckon with.
“Nagepur is a fairly well-off village by the standards of Uttar Pradesh, a huge and poor state. In the past decade, many of its households have gained toilets, running water, reliable power—and the internet,” the column says.
According to the Internet and Mobile Association of India, the article notes, the country is on track to surpass 1 billion active internet users, up from 622 million in 2020, (IAMAI). “The shift is happening at lurching speed thanks to dirt-cheap devices and data.”
While the internet propelled the smartphone revolution years ago in Indian cities, digital frontiers have moved to villages due to saturation. “It is surging above all among the young, promising to upend much about rural life, from education and work to leisure and love. Thus far Indian politicians have cheered on a booming digital economy,” the column says.
Nagepur offers a window, The Economist writes, into how the change is playing out. At the village school, smartphones have long been used for homework. “But AI chatbots are a revelation. Ask a class of 11- to 14-year-olds whether they use them, and a wave of hands goes up.”
“Beyond education and work, smartphones are changing Nagepur’s social geometry. It is more common now for the young to form friendships and relationships beyond the village. The rural young may, like their urban peers, start to demand a greater say in crucial decisions, like marriage. If villagers become as screen-addicted as their urban peers, one might expect the spread of other social attitudes also to accelerate,” the report says.
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Private firms enter defence sector with full force
The precarity around global order, following the Ukraine-Russia war and US-Iran war, is real; and it is forcing countries to invest in weaponry and defence. In India, the government’s defence boost has a new face: private investment.
“India’s private defence companies are poised to expand their footprint in the sector, but analysts warn they still lack the technology and capabilities needed to produce cutting-edge weapons for the country’s military or export markets,” Junaid Kathju of the South China Morning Post reports.
According to a defence ministry statement issued last week, the report says, in the 2025-26 financial year, private firms contributed 24 percent of India’s defence production, accounting for 4.4 billion dollars of the record 18.7 billion dollars total.
“The figures reflect a gradual shift away from a sector long dominated by state-owned manufacturers, with private firms contributing more to drones, surveillance systems, ammunition and components,” Kathju reports.
India has more than 500 licensed defence companies and 16,000 micro, small and medium-sized enterprises in the sector. However, only 134 companies have registered with the State-run Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) as production and development partners.
The report cites CRISIL Ratings, which is expecting the revenues of India’s private defence firms to expand by 15-16 percent annually through FY27. The Centre has also set its sights on eventually raising the private sector’s share in defence production to 50 percent.
China’s AI blueprint
China has a blueprint for AI and the global media is carefully going through the plan. Walter Russell Mead writes for The Wall Street Journal about how Beijing has identified key sectors for creating a ‘people-vehicle-home’ ecosystem.
China is launching a “full-scale push” to roll out AI across its economy and make this sector the foundation of its economic strategy. The 17-point-plan is a how-to in accelerating the rise of AI and “reinvigorating the Chinese economy by reorienting it around the new technologies.”
There’s nothing uncertain about the plan. Quoting officials, Mead explains that the goal is to “fully, accurately, and comprehensively implement the new development concept, give full play to China’s advantages of a super-large-scale market, and broad consumption scenarios.”
They envision a “people-vehicle-home” ecosystem that seamlessly connects smart cars, smart roads and smart homes. Brain-computer interfaces, AI-powered smart glasses, wearables and a range of other consumer products are expected to make their way into domestic markets and, increasingly, onto the global stage, Mead writes.
“Laying out a blueprint is one thing, transforming an economy another, but Western observers would be unwise to scoff. China’s planned economy has enormous and growing problems, but its planners remain extremely effective when it comes to directing investment into favored sectors and creating regulatory structures that favor the kind of investment and development that the party prefers,” he writes.
Much is happening on the home front too. In the tech world, a familiar name from India’s startup ecosystem is now set to take the global stage as WhatsApp’s CEO.
Another Indian CEO at a global giant
Abhishek Dey of the BBC reports on Kunal Shah, tracing the CRED founder’s rise from India’s startup ecosystem to the helm of a global tech giant. “The appointment follows Meta’s $900m (£679m) investment in Cred and comes at a time when WhatsApp is seeking to expand beyond messaging into payments, business services and AI-powered products.”
While it is not uncommon for Indian-origin executives to lead world’s biggest technology companies, it is less common for someone who has built their name within India’s startup ecosystem to lead a company with more than 3 billion active users worldwide.
Shah first broke ground with FreeCharge, a mobile recharge platform he co-founded in 2010 as India’s internet economy was still in its infancy.
Later came Cred in 2018, with a simple business model centred around rewarding those who paid their credit card bills on time. “In public appearances, Shah has often linked the company’s origins to questions of trust and incentives. The company later expanded into lending, insurance, commerce and wealth management products.”
Dey notes that Whatsapp’s appointment reflects themes from Shah’s own business model. “WhatsApp is increasingly expanding beyond messaging into payments, commerce and business services – areas where Shah has spent much of the past decade building products, investing and advising companies.”
(Edited by Ajeet Tiwari)