New Delhi, Sept 21: India sees no reason to slow its artificial intelligence efforts, as much of its work is focused on developing applications and models tailored to the needs of its people, IT Ministry sources said on Monday. The sources said the government remained concerned about AI safety, but stressed that mechanisms were already in place to report incidents involving AI systems.

“Cybersecurity threats and cyber incidents include incidents of this nature. As it is, an obligation to report exists.

We will have to tighten the norms, timeframe and content of the reporting. We are already doing that,” the sources said, when asked whether incident-reporting requirements would be tightened following recent cases of AI agents autonomously taking actions beyond their intended tasks.

The government’s position comes amid growing global concerns over the risks posed by increasingly powerful frontier AI models. Researchers and safety experts at leading AI companies, including OpenAI and Anthropic, have recently issued warnings about potential risks associated with such systems.

Asked whether India is considering slowing the pace of AI development in view of the global concerns, the IT Ministry sources said, “We are not at the frontier end of it, so there is no reason we should pause any of our research. The issue is coming up with frontier models.”

India’s intention, right from the beginning, has not necessarily been to build frontier models but applications and models that can work for its people, the sources said. “Of course, we are concerned about safety issues, but it doesn’t mean we have to do that...

I don’t think there is a need to pause,” the sources added. The US too has opposed calls for a halt, with the Donald Trump administration arguing that slowing AI development could undermine US leadership and give China an advantage.

AI-related issues are expected to figure prominently alongside trade, tariffs and other economic matters when Chinese President Xi Jinping visits Washington later this week for summit talks with his US counterpart, Trump. Earlier, IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw had said on September 17 that AI’s complex user-safety dimension makes regulation necessary even as the technology brings significant benefits.

“Whenever a new technology comes, that new technology brings many positives, but it also carries several risks. That is why regulation always plays a role in every new technology.