India launches national AI readiness drive with presidential backing

This announcement is a small but telling data point in how fast AI skills are moving from specialist topic to head‑of‑state priority in large emerging economies. By putting the president on stage to hand out AI certificates—including to Members of Parliament—India is normalizing the idea that basic AI literacy is part of civic infrastructure, not just an IT skillset. Google’s role as ‘principal AI skilling partner’ also shows how deeply big tech is embedding itself into national capacity‑building efforts. ([theweek.in](https://www.theweek.in/wire-updates/business/2025/12/30/del71-biz-president-skill-india.html))

Relative to the hard‑tech headlines, this might look minor, but it matters for the race to AGI in two ways. First, it broadens the domestic talent base that can adopt and govern AI systems, which in turn makes India a more attractive market and partner for frontier labs and hyperscalers. Second, involving MPs directly in skilling programmes is an unusually literal way to close the gap between people who legislate AI and people who understand what modern models can actually do.

Over time, countries that pair frontier‑model access with broad AI readiness will be better positioned to shape global norms, supply chains, and alliance structures around advanced AI. India is clearly signaling it intends to be one of them.