India is unprepared for the AI juggernaut, which is already triggering a geopolitical upheaval, arriving at ten times the speed of the Industrial Revolution. AI is overwhelming national institutions and every fundamental aspect of people’s lives as it takes over the apex of value chains in all domains --the military, commerce, education, health care, home, finance and banking. It is consequently concentrating power into an unprecedented duopoly of just two global superpowers, followed far behind by the Tier 2 AI powers that form part of their supply chains, but which are nevertheless attracting global capital purely on the strength of their AI capabilities. FIIs are reportedly moving to countries with strong AI industries such as the US, Taiwan and South Korea. This accentuates the urgent need for India to develop meaningful AI capabilities if we want to stay technologically, economically and geopolitically strong.AI (Pixabay)Both China and the US have national AI strategies. The US 2025 AI plan stresses the national security imperative of maintaining “unchallenged global technological dominance”, focusing on dismantling regulation and environmental constraints of all types and promoting AI education and frontier AI science and manufacturing capabilities. This is in sharp contrast to the general approach to defunding science and education in the rest of the US economy. The Chinese AI 2025 Plan focuses on societal wide AI diffusion, after its 2017 AI plan emphasised building the foundations of the AI industry.Simultaneously with investing in AI capabilities, India needs an urgent rethink of the institutional capability required to deal with the manifold challenges that AI poses. Fortunately, developing institutions and policy responses is a task India is well equipped for. Decades ago, India realised that security was no longer just about policing borders or deploying soldiers; it had become a cross-cutting domain spanning military/economic/technological security, cybersecurity, energy and other domains. It, therefore, required forward-looking analyses and real-time coordination across multiple ministries. The government therefore created the office of the national security adviser (NSA) directly under the PMO. This institution has direct access to and the ear of the Prime Minister (PM) and his office and is treated with respect and deference by the many ministries it interacts with.It must always be kept in mind that the AI revolution is not just a technology watershed, and it will be a very costly mistake to treat it as such. AI is a cross-cutting, multi-domain area, and it will very shortly overtake and impact every domain of national life. It stands to reason therefore that managing AI for the new age must abjure a vertically silo-ed approach, as vertically siloed ministries will lack the authority to formulate and manage a national response for the broader socio-economic, geopolitical, and military upheavals caused by AI.It is proposed, therefore, that the same institutional blueprint for national security as devised for the office of the NSA and the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) – should be considered for AI. India must establish a National AI strategic advisor backed by an AI Council or Secretariat directly under the PMO, which would exercise a cross-ministry mandate. The national AI strategist must report directly to the PM. For the role of the AI strategist, one may suggest deliberately avoiding a person who only has a technical background, as someone with a broad geopolitical and social outlook, who is quick to grasp new ideas, including complex technical ones, is forward-looking and enterprising and unencumbered by the rigidities that characterise traditional bureaucracies – is required. The Secretariat staff must also come from diverse backgrounds - geopolitics, military strategy, technology, economics, skill development, education and sociology--and must be top-notch and imaginative to comprehend contemporary developments, and not be conformist and risk averse, as most bureaucracy is. It should be able to make bold explorations, recommendations and moves.All this requires special human resources, which should not be difficult to find. The coming AI storm cannot be weathered with the complacency India is exhibiting today. Developing institutions, policy responses and capabilities early on is one of the smartest and most impactful investments with the highest possible geo-economic and geopolitical stakes a nation can make.Fortunately, India possesses immense institutional depth, intellectual capacity, and expertise to execute this flawlessly. In the short- to medium-term such a step would increase confidence in India, as several reliable news outlets are ascribing the FII exit from India’s stock exchanges to the lack of a globally significant AI industry here. By signaling a strategic approach, confidence in India’s AI future would be strengthened and would lay the ground for the return of foreign institutional capital in the near future among other tangible all around economic benefits.India often says that the AI Age is India's time to shine, but these claims need a structural foundation. Establishing a national AI strategic advisor and council is the essential first step to build sovereign AI power, ensuring India a substantive place in the AI world order.(The views expressed are personal)This article is authored by Smita Purushottam, former ambassador to Switzerland and Parminder Jeet Singh, digital society researcher, New Delhi.