India presents a massive opportunity to be at the forefront of AI, says Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen

Narayen said he is a "massive fan" of digital infrastructure that India has created.

Shantanu Narayen (C), Chairman and CEO of Adobe Systems addresses the gathering on the first day of the three-day B20 Summit in New Delhi. (AFP)

India has made rapid strides in technology and nothing indicates that more than the local tech titans like TCS, Infosys, Tech Mahondra, Wipro or HCL Tech. And there are hundreds of thousands of other companies, big and small, that have contributed immensely in improving India's digital footprint. The latest high-profile achievement was of course Chandrayaan-3 mission, in which the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully landed a lander and a rover on the moon even as Russia failed to do so with its Luna-25 spacecraft.

Keeping all of that in mind was likely Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen, who on Friday, heaped fulsome praise on what India had achieved as a country in the tech field.

Narayen said he is a "massive fan" of digital infrastructure that India has created and lauded the country for its infrastructure, skills, technology, innovation and entrepreneurship.

He was speaking on the sidelines of B20 Summit India 2023, which has seen global CEOs and corporate honchos converging in the capital for one of the biggest business gatherings this year.

"I am a massive fan of digital infrastructure that India has built...it is infrastructure, it is skills, technology, innovation and entrepreneurship," Narayen told PTI.

The Business 20 (B20) is the official G20 dialogue forum with the global business community.

Earlier, while speaking at a session on 'AI for Business and Societies: Opportunities and Regulations', Narayen said that with 46 per cent of worldwide digital payments, a billion people with Aadhaar cards and 850 million smartphone and internet users, India presents a massive opportunity to be at the forefront of Artificial Intelligence.

At the same forum, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna spoke on the AI opportunity.

Speaking on Friday, Krishna said that he is very "excited" about AI's power to drive productivity, which can help companies and even economies grow faster - yesterday, an Australian official had said that AI has the power to grow that country's economy manifold. Australia's Productivity Commissioner Michael Brennan said on Thursday that AI could have a major impact on improving the economic output in the next few decades as the Western world deals with a productivity crisis.

Krishna said that by building on digital infrastructure, Artificial Intelligence (AI) can take on certain low level cognitive tasks and be able to do them.

"When you can do that, you make everyone more productive, in effect you have more workers...you are generating more capita GDP in each nation...as we go back to very beginning of B20 about inclusion, that is the way to make GDP grow faster across all countries," he said.

Krishna added, "Our goal should all be how do we make secure and accountable AI that can benefit productivity of enterprises and governments."