New Delhi: Gautam Adani on Monday said India’s development journey will be fundamentally different from that of the United States or China, stressing that the country is building its future around rising domestic demand and large scale economic transformation.
Speaking at the CII Annual Business Summit 2026 in New Delhi, the Adani Group Chairman said India’s growth is being driven by expanding cities, rising household aspirations, increasing industrial activity, electric mobility and millions of small businesses preparing to scale up.
According to Adani, India’s biggest strength lies in the fact that demand already exists for much of the infrastructure and industrial capacity currently being created. He said the country’s challenge is not generating demand but building enough capacity to match the pace of economic expansion.
Highlighting the energy sector, Adani noted that India has crossed 500 gigawatts of installed power capacity as of March 2026, with more than half of this capacity added over the last decade. He added that the country is targeting nearly 2,000 gigawatts of capacity by 2047 as part of its long term industrial and energy transformation.
He described India’s growth as “compounding acceleration” rather than gradual expansion, pointing to the country’s economic trajectory. India took 67 years after Independence to become a $2 trillion economy, but added the next $2 trillion within just 12 years, he said.
Adani also spoke extensively about the future impact of artificial intelligence, arguing that India should reject fears that AI will eliminate jobs. Instead, he said AI should be developed as a tool to improve productivity, create employment opportunities and help small businesses compete globally.
Drawing parallels with the success of Unified Payments Interface, Adani said technology can unlock entirely new markets and business models by bringing ordinary citizens into the formal digital economy.
He added that AI could trigger a transformation similar to the digital payments revolution, creating industries, enterprises and economic opportunities that may not yet even exist today. Adani also warned that the rapid growth of AI would significantly increase demand for energy intensive infrastructure such as data centres, requiring India to prepare early for future capacity needs.
