‘Price dumping of AI into India’: BharatGen CEO Rishi Bal warns cheap foreign models threaten local ecosystem

Rishi Bal, the CEO of BharatGen, has raised serious concerns about India's growing reliance on foreign artificial intelligence (AI) platforms. He warns that without nurturing a homegrown ecosystem, the nation risks becoming overly dependent on overseas AI services, which are being introduced at unsustainably low prices. In an interview with Business Today during the India AI Impact Summit 2026, Bal highlighted that while Indian users are benefiting from popular models like ChatGPT, they are inadvertently enhancing these foreign systems with their data. He analogized this situation to exporting raw materials only to import finished goods, saying, "Today, we're in this place where all of us are using ChatGPT. And that data is going to make somebody else's model better. And then we are going to buy that same model back." Bal emphasized the importance of developing local AI capabilities to protect India's data sovereignty and economic interests. He stressed the need for affordable local options for startups, warning that foreign AI firms' aggressive pricing strategies could severely hinder domestic developers. "What is happening is we're getting a price dumping of AI into India," Bal pointed out. He compared this practice to the predatory pricing seen in traditional industries, arguing that such actions could lock the country into long-term technological dependency. To combat these challenges, BharatGen recently unveiled a new multilingual foundation model, Param2 17B, during the summit. This model, which supports 22 Indian languages and is built from the ground up using Indian data, aims to bolster the nation's sovereign AI capabilities. Bal acknowledged the short-term benefits of accessing global AI tools but cautioned that the long-term implications of price dumping could stifle local innovation. As India ramps up its efforts to establish a robust AI infrastructure through government-backed initiatives, Bal insists that affordable domestic models are essential for empowering startups. This would not only prevent the export of valuable data but also fortify India’s position in the global AI arena. He concluded with a stark warning: "If we don’t build these capabilities ourselves, India risks becoming a permanent consumer instead of a producer in the AI economy."