By Vinod Dhall

In April, the government announced the selection of Bengaluru-based Sarvam to develop India’s first home-grown artificial intelligence (AI) large language model (LLM); it is expected to be ready in six months. This is part of the government’s multi-dimensional plan to foster the growth of AI in India, including foundational LLMs, compute capacity, large data sets, and AI talent. Countries across the globe are making similar efforts. For instance, the European Commission (EC) recently put out a report outlining the European Union’s (EU) integrated strategy to establish Europe as a “leading AI continent”. The global race is on, currently led by the US and China.

AI is often referred to as the cornerstone of the fourth Industrial Revolution that is expected to reshape the landscape of industries, finance, governance, and, in fact, society as a whole. AI offers unparalleled efficiency, innovation, and insights. On the other hand, it throws up a worrying number of potential risks such as entrenched bias, ethical concerns, deepfakes, and worsening inequalities. Naturally, therefore, there is a call for regulation, at least in a calibrated manner. One area of heightened regulatory worry is the relationship between AI and competition/antitrust law. This has engaged the attention of competition agencies and governments across countries; the effort has been to identify potential areas of concern and the search for remedial measures.

Recently, leading competition authorities in the US, EU, and UK put out a joint statement on competition in generative AI (GenAI) foundation models and AI products. The joint statement, while acknowledging AI as a technological inflection point with the potential for unparalleled benefits to society, identified areas where growing AI power can........

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