Article · 8 min read

India's AI Inference Problem

Team Inc42 · Inc42 Free Intermediate India

Names the version of this problem that is specific to Indian companies: revenue in rupees, inference billed in dollars, and a currency move you did not budget for eating margin. If you sell in INR and run on foreign models, this is your risk in one page.

  • India is projected to need around 7 GW of AI compute capacity by 2030.
  • Inference is becoming the largest operating cost of AI native products because it scales with usage, not customer count.
  • Indian companies earn in rupees and pay for inference in dollars, so FX moves hit margins directly.
  • Yotta, CtrlS and Reliance Jio are building out GPU clusters to cut that foreign dependency.
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The question it answers

  1. My AI features cost real money every time someone uses them. How do I stop gross margin from collapsing?

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