'We are the Lakshmi Mittals of AI industry...': Deepak Shenoy on why Indian investors should not fear missing AI boom

As the artificial intelligence (AI) theme dominates global headlines and US tech giants invest billions of dollars in the sector, many Indian investors are gripped by a familiar anxiety: Are we missing the AI bus?

The AI boom this year has benefited global markets from the US, China, to Hong Kong. Indian investors have suffered as Indian IT companies' exposure to AI remains low. Christopher Wood of Jefferies even went as far to call the country's stocks a "reverse AI trade". This basically means that India could outperform if the global AI bubble bursts.

Yet, Deepak Shenoy, founder and CEO of Capitalmind, has a different view altogether. He thinks "AI as a theme is not lost for India". In fact, India's apparent late entry into the AI race may emerge as its strategic advantage.

Lessons from the Dot-Com Era

Shenoy drew parallels with the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, where India was not an early participant either. While Silicon Valley burned capital at a scale unimaginable for Indian markets at the time, India quietly built capabilities.

"Even during the dotcom boom, we were so late to that party. But guess what? Today, we have one of the largest e-commerce markets worldwide. It's been 25 years, and we have evolved through this," Shenoy said, arguing that not participating in the boom did not really hamper wealth creation for India.

Shenoy ardently believes that AI will make its place here, just differently and slightly later.

The Lakshmi Mittal Playbook

Shenoy uses a powerful analogy to explain India’s potential role in AI: “We are the Lakshmi Mittals of the AI industry.”

Just as Lakshmi Mittal built a global steel empire by acquiring distressed assets at rock-bottom prices during downturns, India may benefit from the inevitable bust in AI.

Shenoy said that AI will be a huge theme in India, and there will also be Indian companies that will take advantage of it. “It may happen 3 to 5 years down the line, I don't know! But you have to wait for the bubble to be created in the US.”

When some AI companies would go bust, their technology, products, and intellectual property will not disappear — they will simply become cheaper. Indian companies can capitalise on this.

"We may not be able to put in $200 billion, but if that technology is available to us for $20 billion, we will buy it when nobody else in the world will want it," said Shenoy, adding that "we are the Lakshmi Mittals of the AI industry".

He argued that India would pick the assets from the possible bankrupt AI companies and that strategy would be sensible than losing money now.

AI has emerged as a major theme this year. The Mangificent Seven has a sharp jump in their share price and market capitalisation, thanks to the focus on the AI boom. Nvidia has emerged at the forefront of this rally. Its market cap this year crossed the $5 trillion mark this year — the first company to achieve this feat.

The surge in artificial intelligence investment that has buoyed world growth is set to continue and deliver longer-term gains, OECD Secretary General Mathias Cormann said.

Shenoy expects AI to remain a big feature of 2026, but he believes that 2026 is too small a time frame. “It might take four to five years for this whole thing to evolve.”

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