Are our corporates Innovators or Scammers?

 

Are our corporates Innovators or Scammers?

By S. N. Verma

India today stands at a critical crossroads. On one hand, we proclaim—loudly and repeatedly—our ambition to become a global leader in innovation and research, particularly in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI). On the other hand, our conduct, unfortunately, often resembles that of opportunistic service providers and, worse, imitators masquerading as innovators. This contradiction raises an uncomfortable but necessary question: Are we truly innovators, or are we merely projecting an illusion of innovation?

The recent Global AI Summit in Delhi was organised with great fanfare to showcase India’s capabilities in Artificial Intelligence and to project the country as an emerging global AI hub. The objective, on paper, is laudable. India does have genuine reasons to aspire for global leadership in AI. Across the world, a significant proportion of cutting-edge AI research and innovation is being driven by Indian engineers and scientists working in global technology companies. Their intellectual labour has helped these companies create path-breaking technologies and reap enormous commercial benefits—rightfully so, since those companies invested heavily in research, development, and long-term innovation.

The uncomfortable question, however, is this: what have Indian IT companies done with decades of dominance in the technology services sector?

Despite enjoying a massive talent pool, policy support, and sustained profitability, most Indian IT giants have chosen the easier route—remaining service providers focused on quick returns, rather than investing seriously in original technology development. Innovation demands patience, risk, and long-term vision. Unfortunately, that spirit has been conspicuously absent.

What makes this situation deeply troubling is a shocking episode now circulating widely in the media. A Chinese robot was reportedly showcased by Galgotias University as its own innovation, and the same robot was also represented by Wipro at the Global AI Summit as an example of indigenous AI capability.

This is not merely embarrassing—it is damaging.

India is in the process of forging a global technological identity. In such a context, presenting foreign (Chinese) technology on a prestigious platform under the banner of “Indian innovation” is an insult to the countless indigenous startups that are genuinely building technology from zero. There is nothing wrong with sourcing technology or collaborating globally; innovation today is rarely insular. But there is a fundamental ethical difference between sourcing and creating, and deliberately blurring that line amounts to deception.

Such acts do not just undermine credibility; they cast aspersions on the very capability of Indian technologists and researchers. They cheapen the struggle of real innovators and reduce national ambition to a hollow marketing exercise.

It is well known that the Government of India is seriously committed to making India a global leader in Artificial Intelligence. However, that goal cannot be achieved through superficial showcases, borrowed hardware, and rebranded imports. Leadership in AI will come only through sustained research, original innovation, and the courage to invest in uncertain futures—not by remaining comfortable service vendors.

It may be time for PM Narendra Modi to directly engage with the CEOs of major Indian IT companies and convey a simple but firm message: if India genuinely wants to lead the world in AI, its corporations must start building technology, not merely servicing it. Copying or misrepresenting others’ innovations and presenting them as one’s own—as appears to have happened at the ongoing AI summit—is not just unethical, it is a national embarrassment.

Entities such as Wipro and Galgotias University must be asked to explain their conduct. Accountability is essential—not to punish innovation, but to protect it. If such actions go unchecked, they risk eroding trust in India’s technological aspirations at a moment when the world is finally beginning to take them seriously.

India does not lack talent. What it risks lacking is honesty and ambition in execution. If we truly wish to be innovators, we must first stop behaving like impostors.