Nilekani and Amodei on building India as the use case capital of the world

At a high-stakes fireside chat during the India AI Impact Summit 2026, two architects of the digital age, Nandan Nilekani, Co-founder of Infosys and the force behind Aadhaar, and Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, met to discuss the widening chasm between AI’s raw capability and its real-world diffusion.

Moderated by Rahul Matthan, the conversation steered clear of the typical AGI rhetoric, focusing instead on the adolescence of the technology and India’s unique experience in scaling digital infrastructure for billions.

The duality of capability and diffusion

Dario Amodei addressed the duality of modern AI during the session. While models like Claude are reaching what he calls the exponential phase of genius-level capability in software and biomedicine, the societal impact remains stalled by enterprise friction.

"Even if we froze in place what the technology was capable of today, I think the economic impact could be much greater than it is because it just takes time. There are just frictions to adopt things through the enterprise," Amodei noted.

Amodei’s recent observations on the adolescence of technology suggest a more sombre outlook. He warned that while the Global South has the most to gain from catch-up growth,” the risks of economic displacement and the train wreck of AI, modelled after the backlash to blue-collar globalisation, are real if the benefits do not reach everyone.

India: The use case capital of the world

Nandan Nilekani, referred to as the "grandfather" of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), offered a pragmatic counterpoint rooted in India’s lived experience with Aadhaar and UPI. For Nilekani, the "speed of evolution" in foundation models is impressive, but "diffusion is a different ball game."

"India will demonstrate this because we have the experience of diffusion at the population scale. It’s both an art and a science. It involves institutions, policy making, negotiations, dealing with incumbents, dealing with newcomers, the whole trust-building thing," Nilekani asserted.

Nilekani argued that India’s strategic focus should not be on competing in the model race alone, but on becoming the "use case capital of the world." He warned that if AI only produces deepfakes or raises power bills, a white-collar backlash is inevitable. To prevent this, he called for a "race to the top" to show profound, useful applications in education, healthcare, and agriculture.

The "100 diffusion pathways" initiative

A major highlight of the summit was the launch of the "100 Diffusion Pathways by 2030" initiative. This global coalition, which includes Anthropic, Google, the Gates Foundation, and the UNDP, aims to create "open playbooks" for scaling AI.

Nilekani explained that a diffusion pathway is a packaged method to reach a particular goal, incorporating technical guardrails, institutional buy-in, and data strategies. He cited the Maharashtra Agri-stack (Mahavistar) as a prime example.

Why AI needs India?

Amodei revealed that Anthropic is doubling down on India, not just through a newly announced partnership with Infosys, but by focusing on the "long-tail" of Indic languages. Sonnet 4.6, released just a day prior, features significantly improved performance across 10 Indic languages.

"The fraction of Claude usage for technical programming and software engineering is substantially higher here in India than it is in most other places in the world. The use of Claude and Claude Code has doubled in India in just four months," Amodei shared.

The 25% growth dream

The session concluded with a bullish vision of India’s economic future. While Amodei wondered if AI could lead India to a 20% or 25% growth rate by tying together its technical adeptness and large population, Nilekani remained characteristically focused on execution.

"I don’t know about 25%, if I get 10%, I’ll be happy. The focus has to be on inclusion. This AI has to work for people, starting from the user and how we can improve their lives," Nilekani concluded.