On Building and Funding Public AI, Governments Must Be Tactical, but Remain Flexible

Akash Kapur, senior fellow at New America, and Arvind Narayanan, author of AI Snake Oil, co-wrote an op-ed for The Indian Express. They emphasize that governments, including India’s, should draw on the lessons of Digital Public Infrastructure but not use it as a comprehensive blueprint or checklist for public investment in AI. They also warn against governments focusing solely on both AI innovation and an infrastructural representation of AI, and provide some recommendations on where governments should allocate their resources in using AI to address public-interest goals.

“The apparent tension in a framework that emphasises markets yet relies on the state is particularly acute when it comes to public investments. AI is capital intensive, and it emerges at a moment of global fiscal constraint. How much should taxpayers underwrite the development of public AI systems, and how should policymakers weigh the risks of crowding out private investment against the benefits of building shared capacity? As governments around the world consider alternatives to proprietary AI, does DPI offer guidance on how to finance these systems?”

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“The quest for sovereignty through public funding of domestic models is similarly weak — and increasingly unnecessary. Today’s AI landscape is characterised by a paradox in which frontier models are both prohibitively expensive and ever-more commoditised. Governments now have access to a growing ecosystem of open-source alternatives whose performance often trails the frontier by mere months. The capabilities offered by such models are more than sufficient for most public-interest applications. Instead of building models, governments would be better served by adapting open-source models to local conditions.”

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“The spread of DPI has been rapid and impressive. Delegates from around the world will be looking to glean lessons from this. Our message to them is clear. Infrastructure-based investments offer the highest-leverage, especially when they embrace lighter, more frugal forms. But governments must also step outside the DPI framework to make targeted interventions addressing public-interest goals private actors won’t pursue.”