Chapel Hill, North Carolina — Palantir CEO Alex Karp said India has the potential to become a major artificial intelligence power, pointing to the country’s technical talent, efforts to expand energy supplies and ability to develop advanced AI models.
“I could see it doing very, very well,” Karp said when asked about India’s position in AI during a media interaction on the sidelines of the G20 Innovation Ministerial.
“First of all, model development, energy source. I mean, you guys are doing a lot of scrappy things to get energy,” he said.
Karp described energy availability and technical expertise as two of the most important factors shaping AI development.
“One of the bottlenecks is energy, technical talent,” he said, adding that countries also bring different technological strengths to the field.
The Palantir chief called AI potentially the most important technological development of the past century, while warning that it can be used for both beneficial and harmful purposes.
“The most important technological development. It may be in the last hundred years,” Karp said. “And because of that, it can be used for good and ill. So you really do need to have experts looking at it.”
Karp said countries will increasingly need to develop and maintain control over their own sovereign AI systems.
“I think what’s particularly interesting about the conference is every country has to figure out a way to have its own sovereign AI,” he said.
Governments, he added, will have to determine how to control AI model weights, data and deployment while ensuring critical systems remain under domestic control.
“How do you control the weights? How do you control the data? How do you control where it goes?” Karp said. “How do you make sure it’s indigenous to your own country?”
Karp identified the United States, China and Israel as leaders in AI, but said other countries also need to build their own capabilities and determine how best to deploy the technology.
“America, really America, China, Israel are in the forefront here, but it’s really important that other countries have their own AI developments and figure out ways to use them,” he said.
He said organizations deploying AI need sufficient computing power, an application layer and clear decisions about where to use closed and open models to protect sensitive information.
“You need compute, you need an application layer, you need to be able to control where you put closed and open models so that you’re not losing your telemetry, your alpha, your government’s secrets maybe,” Karp said.
Karp said Palantir’s platform can support models from multiple developers. While the company favors American technology, he said U.S. AI companies still need to compete on quality, cost and safety.
“We have to win this battle, and we have to have American models be the best,” he said.
Karp also urged governments to take a careful approach to AI regulation, warning that poorly designed rules could weaken the countries they are intended to protect.
“One of the biggest problems is it’s gotta be done by people who understand the issues,” he said. “That doesn’t mean there should be no regulation. So I’m not an anti-regulation person.”
Palantir Technologies is a U.S. software company co-founded by Karp in 2003. Its platforms are used by government agencies and businesses to integrate and analyze large amounts of data, with customers spanning defense, intelligence, manufacturing, healthcare, energy and financial services. (Source: IANS)
