Nasscom Chief on AI, GCCs & India-UK FTA: Key Takeaways

The Economic Times sat down with Nasscom President Rajesh Nambiar for a wide-ranging conversation on India's tech trajectory. Three themes stood out: the India-UK Free Trade Agreement's digital trade and talent mobility provisions, the evolution of Global Capability Centres (GCCs) from cost centers to innovation hubs, and India's push to build an AI-native workforce.

Nambiar framed Sovereign AI not as protectionism but as the ability to build models on domestic data, with Indian languages and regulatory guardrails. He argued India's strength lies in the application layer, not foundation models – a position that aligns with the government's focus on use-case-driven AI adoption.