Budget 2026 must scale IndiaAI Mission to keep pace with surging AI compute demand: Yotta CEO Sunil Gupta

As the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) accelerates within India's startup, enterprise, and public sector, it is crucial for the upcoming Budget 2026-27 to expand the nation's AI infrastructure decisively. Sunil Gupta, Co-Founder and CEO of Yotta Data Services, emphasized that sustaining India's goal of becoming a global AI leader hinges on scaling the IndiaAI Mission. Gupta highlighted the urgent need for increased computational resources, stating that the demand for AI infrastructure has already exceeded initial projections. He stressed, "Timely access to infrastructure is now critical to maintain momentum across the ecosystem." The IndiaAI Mission, which has a budget of ₹10,372 crore approved in March 2024, received a ₹2,000 crore allocation in the 2025-26 Budget, marking a significant tenfold increase from earlier estimates. However, Gupta advocates for further enhancements to meet the surging demand for GPUs, which has seen nearly a fourfold increase over the past year. In February 2025, Yotta was included in the IndiaAI Mission, a government initiative aimed at positioning India as a leader in AI technology. One of the key expectations from the upcoming budget is the establishment of long-term, bankable contracts for AI workloads within the IndiaAI framework and related public-sector programs. Gupta suggested that commitments spanning three to five years would greatly enhance capacity planning, foster competitive pricing, and unlock institutional financing for large AI clusters. Fiscal support is essential to reduce the costs associated with building and deploying AI infrastructure. Gupta pointed out that rationalizing duties and taxes on GPUs and AI infrastructure will facilitate quicker deployment, alleviate working capital pressures, and lower overall AI compute costs. Collectively, these measures could significantly bolster India’s ability to scale its AI infrastructure in a timely, sustainable, and globally competitive manner. Looking beyond the immediate budget, Gupta called for a comprehensive five-year roadmap to ensure India becomes a global AI hub. This roadmap should focus on three critical areas: large-scale sovereign compute, affordable energy solutions, and fostering a robust talent and research ecosystem. Gupta emphasized the need for the development of hyperscale AI data centers equipped with high-density racks and advanced cooling systems, which are vital for providing reliable and low-latency access to AI resources across the nation. Moreover, he warned that power availability could soon become a significant obstacle unless proactively addressed. The roadmap must prioritize the integration of renewable energy into AI and data center infrastructure to maintain global competitiveness and environmental sustainability. As of November 2025, India's power generation capacity had surpassed 510 GW, largely due to growth in renewable sources like solar and wind. In addition to infrastructure and energy, Gupta highlighted the necessity of investing in talent and applied research. He stated, "Achieving sovereign AI leadership requires deep investments in talent and applied research," calling for enhanced collaboration between industry, startups, and academia. Attracting long-term global capital for data centers—known for being capital-intensive and long-term investments—requires more than just subsidies. Gupta noted that predictability through long-term contracts, stable tax regulations, and clarity on returns are essential. He proposed measures such as accelerated depreciation and aligning income-tax incentives with new tax regimes to improve the viability of these projects. As AI transforms data centers into significant power consumers, Gupta believes that the upcoming budget must align AI growth with necessary reforms in the power sector. By rationalizing renewable power costs and enabling broader access to green energy, data centers could evolve into essential components of renewable energy capacity rather than burdens on the grid. "Scale is critical in AI, and reinforcing the IndiaAI Mission is the fastest route to establish a resilient computing backbone to support India’s AI ambitions," Gupta concluded.