India faces a significant challenge in building globally competitive foundational AI companies as top research talent remains concentrated in San Francisco and local investors are yet to demonstrate the appetite for large, high-risk bets required at the model layer, Menlo Ventures partner Deedy Das said.
“Any competent foundational model builder out of India, you have to ask the question: why would you work at Sarvam and not at OpenAI or Anthropic?” Das said at The Economic Times World Leaders Forum 2026, held in New Delhi on August 21-22. “If you joined a company like Anthropic or OpenAI three years ago, you would be worth $100 million today. It’s very difficult for somebody to reject that.”
