Washington’s AI bet redefines scientific power: Why India must respond now?

The United States has made a decisive strategic move by embedding artificial intelligence at the heart of scientific discovery through the Genesis Mission. By treating speed of discovery as a national asset, Washington has reset the rules of global competition. For India, the shift is both a warning and an opportunity—one that demands urgent rethinking of how science, AI, energy, and sovereignty intersect.

Last week, the United States Department of Energy unveiled the Genesis Mission, an ambitious initiative that places AI not as a support tool, but as the engine of scientific discovery itself. The programme outlines 26 science and technology challenges where AI systems will design experiments, analyse results, and compress years of research into weeks.

This is not incremental reform. It is a declaration that speed of science is now a strategic weapon.

Why Genesis Changes the Global Equation

Historically, nations competed on who discovered more. The Genesis Mission shifts the contest to who discovers faster. By integrating supercomputers, national labs, real-time data, sensors, and AI models into a single ecosystem, the US is building a discovery infrastructure that directly feeds energy security, defence capability, and industrial leadership.

Importantly, Genesis sits within the energy and strategic establishment—not academia—signalling that AI, science, and national power are now inseparable.

India’s Vulnerability Beneath the Confidence

India speaks confidently of becoming a knowledge superpower. The National Education Policy 2020, rising STEM output, and leadership in areas like space, semiconductors, and green energy all reinforce that ambition. India will also host a major Global South–focused AI summit in 2026.

Yet the uncomfortable reality remains: India’s scientific infrastructure is not designed for speed.

Research ecosystems remain fragmented across ministries and institutions. Data standards are inconsistent. Funding cycles are slow and risk-averse. Public R&D spending hovers around 0.7% of GDP, far below the US and China. High-performance computing exists, but access is limited and bureaucratic.

AI as Infrastructure, Not Policy

India’s AI discourse is dominated by governance, startups, ethics, and skilling. Rarely is AI treated as core national scientific infrastructure—on par with power grids or space launch systems.

The Genesis Mission does exactly that. It embeds intelligence into physical sciences—materials, energy systems, nuclear data, and climate modelling. India currently lacks a unified computational backbone linking IITs, IISc, national labs, and strategic agencies.

The result is duplication, delay, and diluted impact.

Scientific Sovereignty in the AI Age

A critical question looms: Who owns AI-generated science?

When AI models trained on national datasets begin proposing new materials, reactor designs, or quantum breakthroughs, sovereignty shifts from laboratories to computing power, data governance, and model ownership.

Without indigenous AI-science capacity, India risks becoming a supplier of talent and data while others control the engines of discovery.

Autonomous Labs and Digital Readiness

Genesis also accelerates the rise of autonomous laboratories—AI-driven systems where experiments are designed, executed, and refined with minimal human intervention. This demands digitised labs, interoperable data, robotics, sensors, and massive computing capacity.

Most Indian labs are not yet machine-legible. Data formats vary, digitisation is patchy, and basic instrumentation uptime remains a challenge. Before debating job displacement, India must confront whether its institutions are even ready for AI-led science.

The Energy Constraint No One Is Discussing

AI acceleration is energy-intensive. The US explicitly links AI-science strategy with energy planning. India largely does not.

With peak power demand already crossing 250 GW and data centres consuming a rising share of electricity, India cannot build an AI-driven scientific economy on yesterday’s energy systems. AI strategy and power infrastructure must be planned together.

What India Should Be Debating—Now

India does not need to replicate the Genesis Mission. But ignoring its implications would be strategic negligence. Three urgent questions demand national attention:

Should India build a shared AI-science platform connecting leading institutions, national labs, and industry?

How does India safeguard scientific sovereignty when discovery increasingly emerges from AI systems?

Are India’s funding models, institutions, and education systems prepared for machine-accelerated science?

The US has decided that the future of science will be faster—and that speed will shape power. India can respond with strategy, or risk being overtaken while deliberation continues.