What changed
Investor and Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath has proposed that Indian chief ministers compete like corporate CEOs, with states racing to accelerate development and AI growth. Speaking at the NDTV World Summit on October 22, 2026, he said India has lower company-formation, labour and power costs than many Western countries but lacks the risk capital available in the United States and China.
Why it matters
Kamath’s argument shifts the AI question from technology alone to how states organise themselves. His comparison is with Chinese municipalities and provinces, which he described as competing with one another much like rival companies.
That model would give Indian states a sharper reason to attract businesses, build infrastructure and pursue ambitious technology projects. The country may already have a cost advantage: Kamath said putting on a megawatt can be 30–40% cheaper than in the West, while power and labour costs are also lower.
But cheaper inputs do not solve the financing problem. Kamath said companies outside the few countries with abundant risk capital would struggle to compete in frontier AI, where experimentation is expensive and failure is common.
Whether Indian states adopt this CEO-style competition, and whether it improves AI outcomes, remains untested. The proposal’s real challenge is turning competition between governments into funding and execution that technology companies can actually use.
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