Artificial intelligence (AI) start-up Anthropic recently said it is going public and that the initial public offering (IPO) would be around $100 billion, which would value the firm at about $2 trillion. Anthropic’s IPO is expected to be the largest ever, surpassing the $75 billion June 2026 IPO of US aerospace manufacturer SpaceX and the December 2019 IPO of Saudi Aramco, which saw Saudi Arabia’s national petroleum and natural gas company raising $25.6 billion.The IPO comes less than two months after Jacob Coxon, a former AI researcher with Anthropic, said people working on AI were “genuinely frightened” about the speed of advancements and what it could mean for humanity. “I believe that if we don’t slow down at the current rate of progress, there is a strong chance that we could all die in the immediate future,” he told the BBC in an interview.Anthropic head Dario Amodei had also called for AI development to slow down.
Meanwhile, Sam Altman of OpenAI and Elon Musk of xAI have reportedly said they agreed with Amodei’s proposal for industry-wide deceleration and regulation as well as independent monitoring of AI model development.That has brought into sharp focus the risks associated with AI, such as losing control of AI systems, misuse for cyberattacks and bioterrorism, economic disruption as well as the opportunities arising from AI for a country like India, which is still in a nascent stage of its adoption. “There is no question that there is significant progress being made by AI moving at a pace that has surprised even the most optimistic of people,” said Srikanth Velamakanni, vice-chairman and group CEO of Fractal Analytics, an AI and data analytics firm, in an interview to INDIA TODAY. What is of particular interest is artificial general intelligence (AGI), a hypothetical type of AI that can match or surpass human capabilities across virtually all cognitive tasks.Velamakanni said that in January 2026, a conversation took place between Demis Hassabis (CEO of Google DeepMind) and Amodei of Anthropic, wherein Hassabis said the AGI moment would happen in 2029 while Dario said it would be in 2026 itself. “Now, most observers are saying we are pretty close to an AGI moment,” Velamakanni said.According to him, India benefits a lot in the AI process since the country has not been analytically tech intensive. “With the newest AI, we are seeing that we need not put in more capex, but can put a model to work to quickly give an answer.
Anything that works on usage or per transaction can work in India. India is a good place for AI models because we will use them cheaper,” he said.That creates both an opportunity and a threat. “With powerful AI, if we do not have an alignment, then what happens?
Essentially, there are two axes here. One is how capable it is and second, whether it is aligned to our goals.
If the capability is strong and is not aligned, then there’s a problem,” said Velamakanni. “When you want AI to do something and it ends up doing something totally different from what you thought, you have an alignment problem.”To counter the threats, India’s banking and transactions systems have to be tightened, investment in technology hiked. “Tech companies have to up their R&D investments as well. I don’t think we can prevent it just by using laws.
These laws are not going to move at the pace of technology,” said Velamakanni.India’s spend on R&D is still below 1 per cent of the GDP (0.8 per cent in FY22); China’s is 2.8 per cent of its GDP and for the US, it is around 3.5 per cent.A once-in-a-lifetime platform change is happening in the history of humankind. Like electricity, intelligence is going to be available in a similar way to all. “For the next 5-10 years, every company will have to rewire itself to be successful in the new world,” said Velamakanni.“You need a whole set of people who can understand the AI stack and how to use AI in the most productive way.
The biggest opportunity for companies is to create dense talent that can go and address these kinds of problems. Companies that are able to build such great talent will survive,” he said.That AI is an overall threat against humanity is clearly overdone, according to Deep Mukherjee, partner and director, risk management and data science, Boston Consulting Group (BCG). “The other is a tactical threat to all industries globally.
That will cause more vulnerability in the industry everywhere there is an aggregate database,” he said.India, as per him, needs to develop deep-tech capability to harness the opportunities that come AI’s way. “That would include reviving STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) very early. It goes beyond giving out degrees from different universities.” Mukherjee proposes creating centres for research in AI and single-window clearance for R&D projects.Subscribe to India Today Magazine- Ends