Founders of Indian AI companies Sarvam AI and Emergent said the global race to build more powerful AI models is unlikely to slow despite safety concerns, according to Moneycontrol. Emergent founder Mukund Jha said commercial pressure on AI labs would make a slowdown difficult.
Sarvam AI co-founder Pratyush Kumar said India should accelerate its AI push rather than slow down to match countries developing frontier models. He cited Sarvam's work with the government to reach three crore farmers at low cost and the digitisation of around four crore LIC forms using a custom AI model.
For students and job seekers, the discussion highlights a key part of the AI startup sector beyond model size: building capabilities, security and safeguards around increasingly capable systems. Jha said companies and governments need stronger model evaluations and security before deploying such systems.
Kumar also said businesses increasingly need to consider whether they control their AI costs, data and ability to build on top of AI systems. The comments were made at the Moneycontrol Startup Conclave 2026 on September 26.