Built inside SAFL
A working dashboard on India's AI ecosystem — research output, lab activity, public and private investment, regulatory developments, and policy positioning relative to the US, China, EU, and UK.
At a glance
Why it exists
The Indian AI ecosystem is consistently underread by outside funders, policy researchers, and lab strategy teams — and the gap matters.
Decisions about where to allocate GCR talent capital, which governance interventions to push, and how to think about middle powers in AI policy all benefit from a more legible read on what India is actually doing. The Tracker is the working artifact that closes that gap.
It also feeds the INT framework / middle-powers narrative on AI governance funding strategy — see Grantmaking & Writing for that piece.
What it covers
Tracking research output across the top 5 IITs, IISc, and adjacent institutions — what's being published, by whom, and in which subfields.
Indian AI labs (academic, industry, and frontier-adjacent) — staffing, research direction, and collaboration patterns.
Public and private investment in Indian AI — government allocations, philanthropic grants, and venture activity.
DPDP Act, IT Rules, sector-specific guidance, and how Indian regulators are positioning on advanced AI.
India's policy stance relative to the US, China, EU, and UK — alignment, divergence, and the middle-powers narrative.
50+ stakeholders across government, academia, and industry — used as a reference by international organisations evaluating India.
Who reads it
Read more
See the full project writeup with the before/after framing, or read the SAFL page for how the Tracker fits into the broader India + APAC fieldbuilding agenda.