India had the world’s second-largest pool of prime AI authors and inventors in 2025, trailing solely america, in keeping with a brand new research by Stanford College.
The AI Index 2026 report revealed on Monday, April 13, by the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Synthetic Intelligence (HAI) discovered that the biggest share of recognized AI authors and inventors got here from america (220,520) final 12 months, adopted by India (50,460) and Germany (48,520).
Whereas the US is house to probably the most variety of AI researchers, the stream of those consultants into the nation is dramatically slowing. “The variety of AI students shifting to america has dropped 89 per cent since 2017 […] down 80 per cent within the final 12 months alone,” as per the annual report.
In the meantime, India noticed the biggest web outflows (-16.9) of AI analysis expertise in 2025. This metric displays the distinction between the variety of AI authors and inventors who transfer to or out of their respective nations. “The close to mirror-image relationship between the 2 nations displays the well-documented undeniable fact that the US has been the principle vacation spot for Indian AI expertise,” the report stated.
These figures come at a time of intensifying international competitors in AI, the place India is seeking to safe a stronger foothold. They tackle added significance within the context of different components, together with immigration coverage and geographic distribution of funding and employment.
High AI authors and inventors in nations corresponding to India and Brazil are likely to have fewer PhD holders and a extra blended vary of academic backgrounds, as per the report. There may be additionally a gender hole amongst AI authors and inventors evident throughout all nations, with males making up the bulk in all instances, although the extent of the hole varies by nation.
Different India-specific findings
The enterprise adoption of AI continued to develop in 2025, with organisations in creating markets corresponding to India reporting an 88 per cent adoption price final 12 months, up from 77 per cent in 2024. “In 2025, 58 p.c of workers globally reported utilizing AI at work on a semiregular or common foundation, however in India, China, Nigeria, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia, the share exceeded 80 per cent,” the report famous.
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(Picture: Stanford College report)
On AI skilling of the workforce, India noticed the best ability penetration price (3.0) adopted by america at 2.0 and Germany at 1.8. Which means that AI abilities had been listed in LinkedIn profiles of Indian customers at virtually thrice the worldwide common. Nonetheless, these nations “confirmed a persistent gender hole when measuring female and male AI ability penetration charges towards the worldwide common.” As an example, males in India record AI abilities at greater than 1.5 occasions the speed of girls, as per the report.
Whereas AI enterprise adoption and AI ability penetration charges had been excessive in India final 12 months, the nation additionally noticed the sharpest rise in AI nervousness of any nation surveyed. This indicators {that a} rising share of AI customers in India reported feeling anxious about utilizing these services and products, reasonably than emphasising their advantages or drawbacks.
“Between 2024 and 2025, India registered the sharpest rise in concern round AI utilization (+14 share factors) with solely a modest enhance in pleasure (+2),” the report stated. Globally, the share of respondents who say AI services and products provide extra advantages than drawbacks rose from 55 per cent in 2024 to 59 per cent in 2025, and the share saying these merchandise make them nervous elevated to 52 per cent, as per the report.
(Picture: Stanford College report)
India attracted a complete of $4.09 billion in international personal investments in AI final 12 months, trailing nations such because the US ($285 billion), China ($12.41 billion), United Kingdom ($5.90 billion), France ($4.36 billion), and Canada ($4.28 billion). India additionally noticed 108 newly funded AI firms in 2025, with the US as soon as once more main by a large margin at 1,953.
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Key international findings
– Open-source AI: Over 90 per cent of probably the most ‘notable’ AI fashions in 2025 had been produced by tech firms, however probably the most succesfull fashions are additionally the “least clear,” the report famous. It acknowledges that open-source AI growth continues to scale with uploads on platforms corresponding to GitHub and Hugging Face tripling to five.6 million tasks since 2023. Out of those, India represented 5.2 per cent of open-source AI tasks which have secured a minimum of 10 stars on GitHub.
– Mannequin parameters, context home windows: The parameters of AI fashions have idled close to the 1 trillion-mark for the previous three years, although this is perhaps as a result of frontier AI labs are sharing much less data. Mannequin context home windows, then again, have grown virtually 30x per 12 months since mid-2023. Which means that AI fashions that after accepted a number of thousand tokens can now course of thousands and thousands or extra.
(Picture: Stanford College report)
– International AI compute capability: International AI compute capability has grown 3.3 occasions per 12 months since 2022, reaching the equal of 17.1 million H100 chips with Nvidia accounting for over 60 per cent of whole compute immediately. Google and Amazon chips make up the rest of the provision, and Huawei holds a small however rising share of the chip market, as per the report.
– International knowledge centre capability: AI knowledge centres are concentrated in choose areas, with the US internet hosting 5,427 knowledge centres, greater than ten occasions every other nation, and consuming extra power than every other area, up until 2025.
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– International AI funding: Non-public investments greater than doubled in 2025, with generative AI accounting for 60 per cent of all personal AI funding. Newly funded AI firms rose 71 per cent, and billion-dollar funding occasions additionally doubled. US funding exceeded the mixed whole of China and Europe by a large margin. Nonetheless, US public-sector investments had been a modest $20.4 billion in AI-related contracts and grants, towards $285.9 billion in US personal funding in 2025 alone.
(Picture: Stanford College report)
– AI benchmarking: The report highlighted that prime benchmarks used to measure AI progress noticed error charges as much as 42 per cent.
– Obstacles to AI adoption: Gaps in information (59 per cent), funds constraints (48 per cent), and regulatory uncertainty (41 per cent) had been recognized as the principle obstacles to the adoption of AI at workplaces. Nonetheless, the report additionally famous that AI-specific governance roles grew 17 per cent in 2025, and the share of companies with no accountable AI insurance policies in place fell sharply from 24 per cent to 11 per cent.
