The Bigger the Market, the Deeper the Presence: A New Principle for the AI Economy

As global AI companies attract tens of billions of dollars in investment and gear up for hyper-growth, with more and more powerful AI models and softwares, a pressing question arises: Where should these companies create the jobs that these investments would entail?

Conventional wisdom suggests that jobs go where the skills are. This is the logic behind decades of outsourcing and offshoring—India benefited from this massively, thanks to its large pool of English-trained engineers and IT professionals.

But that logic, I argue, is now outdated.

We are entering a new phase of global economic thinking—one driven not just by capabilities, but by entitlements tied to market size. A more equitable, future-facing principle is now emerging:

The bigger the market, the deeper the presence.


The Trump Doctrine of Market Leverage

American President Donald Trump, often derided for his blunt rhetoric, has long insisted that America—the world’s largest consumer market—deserves to be the primary beneficiary of job creation by global companies. In many ways, he's right.

When a company earns a majority of its revenue from the U.S. market, outsources R&D and employment to other countries, and then sells those very services and products back to American consumers, it creates a disconnect between consumption and employment.

This logic is now colliding head-on with the AI boom—where U.S.-based companies are absorbing massive capital, and creating transformational products that can automate entire sectors.

But there's an India twist to this fast-evolving phenomenon.


India’s New Bargaining Position: From Talent Hub to Market Power

India has traditionally attracted jobs from global tech companies because of its talent base. But the time has come for India to assert its position not just as a skilled workforce provider—but as a valuable consumer market.

If OpenAI, Google DeepMind, or Anthropic derive significant revenue from India, India must demand a proportionate share of workforce presence, infrastructure, and R&D investment. This isn't protectionism—it's participationism.

Here’s the principle in the form of an example:

If India accounts for 15% of a company’s global AI revenue, then India should also host 15% of its global AI workforce.

Not just call-center staff, but:

  • AI model fine-tuners
  • Policy and safety researchers
  • Product managers
  • Local language interface designers
  • Data governance teams


It’s Not Just About Skills Anymore

Yes, India has the skilled manpower. But that shouldn't be the only reason global AI companies invest in India.

That's because the minute cheaper skilled labor becomes available elsewhere—or AI becomes smart enough to do the work itself—India could be discarded again.

India should insist on being embedded in the core value-chain of these companies; because it is a strategic market, not just a skilled back office.


Conclusion: A New Global Norm for the AI Era

We need to move from “where it’s cheapest to hire” to “where it’s most just to hire.” From “where the talent is” to “where the value is generated.”

The global AI economy is too important, too powerful, and too transformational to let a few countries reap all the benefits while others are reduced to data farms and consumer dumps. The time (and Trump) has come to let the size of the market decide the depth of the presence.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"Bored" or Rewriting the Playbook? A Rebuttal to the West’s Sneering Gaze at India’s Legacy Billionaire Gen Z

Bloomberg's Andy Mukherjee’s latest opinion piece — sniggering at India’s legacy billionaire Gen Z for supposedly being “bored” of their family businesses — is hardly an outlier. It’s part of a long tradition in Western financial journalism that looks at Indian wealth with a potent mix of discomfort, disapproval, and condescension. This time, though, the criticism is not just ill-founded — it’s tone-deaf to the massive opportunity this generation represents. Let’s take this piece apart. One Family ≠ All of India’s Business Dynasties Mukherjee builds his entire thesis on the Piramals winding down their legacy luggage business. But the Piramals are not a one-business family — and that luggage brand was far from the family’s economic center of gravity. In fact, they've pivoted toward high-value sectors like pharmaceuticals and financial services. To generalise this as a “pattern” of disinterest across India’s business scions is absurd. Most Legacy Next-Gen Heirs Aren’t Losing Inte...
Read more

Wipro’s Great Squander — From India’s First Computer-Maker to a Service-Provider at Risk of Irrelevance

The recent Infosys share buyback has reignited debates around Indian IT’s long-term strategy. While buybacks boost valuations temporarily, critics have rightly contrasted Indian IT majors with their Western counterparts. Companies like Oracle, Microsoft, or Salesforce use financial engineering alongside innovation, whereas Indian IT often leans on financial maneuvers in place of sustained innovation. BusinessLine, among others, has highlighted this growing gap — and the criticism was overdue. But to understand what’s at stake, we need to go back to the history of one of India’s IT bellwethers — Wipro. Unlike Infosys, Wipro was not always a services-only company. It has a product-building DNA that it has all but abandoned. Wipro’s Legacy of Product-Building Wipro was an Indian pioneer in personal computing. In the 1980s, it made one of India’s earliest PCs, well before mass-market computing became common. In the 2000s and 2010s, Wipro used to make desktop and laptop PCs. Beyond IT serv...
Read more

AI Context-Adding: The Next Leap in Social Media Credibility

Social media has given us unprecedented access to news and ideas — but also unprecedented exposure to mis- and disinformation. While platforms have tried various solutions, few have achieved the right balance between speed, credibility, inclusivity, and neutrality. One of the more promising ideas in recent years is X’s Community Notes — a crowdsourced way to add user-generated context to posts. But as it stands, the system is still largely unmoderated, inconsistent, and prone to both bias and misuse. I believe the idea can be greatly enhanced by blending democratic user participation with the speed and scale of AI. Not to fact-check in an aggressive, “true/false” sense, but to add benign, nuanced context that enriches understanding and reduces online polarization. The Model I Propose  1. Open Participation – The system should be open to all users, or at least low-barrier paying users. 2. Evidence-Based Flagging – Users can flag a post they believe lacks context or misrepresents eve...
Read more