GR Exclusive: Open-Source AI Is India’s Biggest Chance to Lead Global Tech Race, Says OpenUK CEO Amanda Brock

As India aims to strengthen its position in the global artificial intelligence space, open-source AI models are gaining importance as a way to reduce dependence on costly and tightly controlled technologies developed by global tech giants. In an exclusive interview with GoodReturns, Amanda Brock, CEO of OpenUK, explained how open-source AI can help India build its own capabilities and play a bigger role in shaping global AI policies.

Speaking with GoodReturns in connection with the India AI Impact Summit 2026, held from February 16 to 21 in New Delhi, Brock said that India's large talent base, along with better access to funding and computing infrastructure, could help the country move from being a talent provider to becoming a global leader in AI development.

How can India leverage open-source AI to reduce dependency on proprietary global models?

"Like all nations India will benefit from access to open source models, as they enable more competitive innovation. As well as opening up innovation through sharing learning and iterative development they have the potential to democratise AI by enabling access for all people. This would be particularly relevant to India, as until recently it has been almost entirely dependent on models from third nations."

"India has a massive talent pool and in order for it to shift to leadership there must be a facilitation for those who want to start businesses and projects, with them being given access to the necessary infrastructure and compute in India. Without this there will be a continued talent flight. The compute announcements from PM Modi at the Summit included some shared resources."

"Also, there needs to be funding to support business set up and scaling more generally and better access to private and public funding to compete with the US. We are already seeing this in the way Sarvam has been funded and national contracts provided to it, that enable it to leverage these to raise more funding."

Do you believe the future of AI models should be open by default, or are we moving toward controlled ecosystems? Why?

"AI models are best open by default in my opinion with room for the odd exception, perhaps, if there is a very good justification. But what is meant by openness needs to be clarified. It's the what of the component parts including the model, instructions/ documentation and ideally data, then the how - what licensing is applied. That ought not to be closed proprietary licensing."

"Last week's Sarvam launch saw it released on a non-commercial licence with the promise of shifting to open weights. We need to be sure that like DeepSeek it's a proper open source licence, like Apache 2.0 or MIT."

With global tech layoffs accelerating, what practical steps should governments and companies take to ensure AI-driven transformation creates new opportunities rather than deepening job displacement?

"We need to see a continued flow of entry level roles being created to ensure the learning pathways of future senior individuals. Over time these individuals will be needed to exercise judgement and discernment on the activities of the AI. They must get the opportunity to learn hands on. I'd like to see more collaboration around opened up AI and would encourage that to be global and cross border."

With climate change a global priority, can the rapid expansion of AI and data centres be made truly sustainable, or do their environmental and energy demands threaten to outweigh AI's long-term economic benefits?

"Over time I expect we won't need quite as many monolithic data centres as we have been considering. The reality is that much of the compute will shift to devices and to small edge based data centres nearer the user. However, I am still concerned that there are going to be more of these big data centres than is good for our environment. We must do our best to ensure that these are as environmentally friendly as possible and kept to a minimum."

Where do you see the biggest opportunity for India-UK collaboration in AI: research, regulation, infrastructure, startups or job creation?

"I see open source as a key point of collaboration for India and the UK, and an opportunity together to take on the top players. As middle nations the best way for us to succeed in this is together. Light touch regulation, collaborative approaches to building the ecosystem and environment needed for success and leveraging our existing relationships where, despite the UK's relatively small size we are already the second largest collaboration partner for India around open source."

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