Behind the AI hype

Summary: Behind the AI headlines, this piece argues the real contest is over cheap, round-the-clock electricity, and India’s capital goods companies sit at the centre of it. It follows the chain from power and grids to data centres, chips and skilled people, and lists the risks.

Summary: Behind the AI headlines, this piece argues the real contest is over cheap, round-the-clock electricity, and India’s capital goods companies sit at the centre of it. It follows the chain from power and grids to data centres, chips and skilled people, and lists the risks. Every reel we scroll, every UPI payment we make and every robot working on a factory floor runs on electricity, and over the next few years, the countries that can produce it cheaply and without breaks will decide who gets to build the factories and who hosts the computers the world depends on. Nations that cannot will end up renting computing power and buying machines from those that can, which is why power has become a far bigger contest than any software or chatbot. The China example China started preparing for this long before most countries did. Its solar capacity crossed 1,000 GW in May 2025, and in that year alone it added a record 315 GW, nearly double all the solar India has ever built. Cheap power keeps Chinese factories competitive, protects them from oil price shocks and gives them enough electricity for large AI clusters, which is why China keeps building at this pace. How far India has come In 2014, India could produce about 76 GW of power from solar, wi

This article was originally published on November 01, 2026.