As Washington and Beijing escalate export controls on advanced chips and models, India must move from being weight-agnostic to becoming source-agnostic. That is a good strategy and sound economics.

Washington and Beijing are drawing swords again, this time over silicon and weights. Both are eyeing more export controls on advanced chips and models, unwilling to let the best tech leave home. Washington has gone so far as to deny advanced models even to treaty allies, while Beijing is reportedly mulling a ban of its own. India, like much of the world, depends largely on foreign compute and models, with few frontier labs of its own. It is reportedly Claude’s second-largest revenue market, after the US. And despite Washington’s high-handedness across tariffs and AI bans, India hasn’t turned to China either. The border, and everything else unresolved there, complicates the picture. That has India boxed in, caught between two powers, pursuing AI ambitions with neither door fully open.