
Why Indian CEO’s are not investing in R&D (Concerning) | Manish Gupta | SparX
SparX by Mukesh BansalShow Notes
In this episode of SparX, Mukesh Bansal speaks with Manish Gupta, Senior Director at Google DeepMind. They discuss how artificial intelligence is evolving, what it means to build truly inclusive AI, and why India must aim higher in research, innovation, and ambition. Manish shares DeepMind’s vision of solving “root node problems,” fundamental scientific challenges that unlock breakthroughs across fields, and how AI is already accelerating discovery in areas like biology, materials, and medicine. They talk about: What AGI really means and how close we are to it.
Why India needs to move from using AI to creating it.
The missing research culture in Indian industry, and how to fix it.
How AI can transform healthcare, learning, and agriculture in India.
Why ambition, courage, and willingness to fail are essential to deep innovation.
Manish also shares insights from his career across the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center and now DeepMind, two of the world’s most iconic research environments, and what it will take for India to build its own. If you care about India’s AI journey, research, and the future of innovation, this conversation is a masterclass in what it takes to move from incremental progress to world-changing breakthroughs.
More from SparX by Mukesh Bansal
AI is getting better at answering questions. But what happens when it starts asking and solving the questions scientists haven’t answered yet?In this episode of SparX, Mukesh Bansal sits down with Paras Chopra, founder of Wingify and Lossfunk, to explore AI research, scientific discovery, consciousness, and India’s place in the global AI race.
AI is getting better at answering questions. But what happens when it starts asking and solving the questions scientists haven’t answered yet?In this episode of SparX, Mukesh Bansal sits down with Paras Chopra, founder of Wingify and Lossfunk, to explore AI research, scientific discovery, consciousness, and India’s place in the global AI race.
What will it take to build robots that can truly operate in the real world? 🤖
What does the roadmap to a "Viksit Bharat 2047" look like from the very top? 🇮🇳In this special episode of SparX, Mukesh Bansal is joined by Professor Ajay Sood, the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Prime Minister of India. As a key architect of India’s scientific policy and a Padmashri awardee, Professor Sood offers an exclusive look into the government’s strategic vision for technology as the ultimate pillar of national sovereignty and economic growth.From the explosion of space-tech startups like Skyroot to the revolutionary ₹1 Lakh Crore R\&D fund, we dive deep into the missions that are positioning India as a global leader. We explore the critical convergence of AI and Quantum Computing, the strategic importance of Semiconductor Mission 2.0, and how India is navigating complex geopolitical supply chains.Whether you are a deep-tech entrepreneur, a student of science, or curious about India's technological future, this conversation provides a masterclass on the "Golden Age of Indian Science."In this episode, we discuss:The Vision for 2047: How Science & Tech are the primary engines for a developed India.Deep Tech Sovereignty: Why India must choose its global partners carefully while building indigenous strength.The Quantum Leap: India’s proactive National Quantum Mission and its synergy with AI.Semiconductors & Nuclear Energy: Building a full-fledged ecosystem and the future of Fusion energy.Democratizing Science: The "One Nation One Subscription" initiative and creating a culture that celebrates science like a festival.
Description- Is superintelligence a few years away, and would we even notice if the systems we built started to matter morally?- Nick Bostrom is the philosopher who put superintelligence on the map. His 2014 book defined the field, and his recent Deep Utopia asks the harder question: what is life for once machines can do everything better than us?- In this episode of Sparks, he tells [Host] that we don't have superintelligence yet but are seeing limited forms of AGI, that frontier labs using AI to accelerate their own research could trigger recursive self-improvement, and that he can no longer rule out timelines of just a few years. He argues the outcome is likely to be either very good or very bad, walks through the three ways it fails, and explains why he now works on problems that only matter over the next 6 to 18 months — philosophy, as he puts it, with a deadline.-We also get into full unemployment as a destination rather than a disaster, what an education system looks like when it isn't producing workers, why suppressing deception in a model makes it more likely to claim consciousness, and why building trust with AI systems now may be a safety measure rather than sentiment.