Third Session: Governance of Artificial Intelligence, Talent and Knowledge: Towards a Knowledge Economy and Spain–India Innovation Ecosystems
The speakers addressed the real impact of artificial intelligence, the gap between expectations and results, and the urgency of creating local innovation ecosystems | View Executive Summary in PDF
The third session of the 5th Spain India Forum addressed one of today’s most strategic topics: the governance of Artificial Intelligence (AI), the development of technological talent, and the creation of innovation ecosystems between India and Spain. Moderated by Pau Solanillas (Harmon Corporate Affairs), the panel brought together Meghna Bal (Esya Center), Pranjal Sharma (economic analyst and advisor to the World Economic Forum), and Jordi Arrufí (Mobile World Capital), who offered a critical and forward-looking perspective on the challenges that AI poses to the knowledge economy.
At the start of the session, Pau Solanillas noted that “we live in a knowledge economy characterized by acceleration: traditional industries are transforming into knowledge-intensive sectors, and Artificial Intelligence has arrived to change everything (…) How can we use AI intelligently? How can we generate a positive impact? And also, what are the risks for our traditional industries, for our economy, of merging with AI?”
Responding to this, Meghna Bal predicted that “there will be large-scale disruption across different services and jobs in those sectors,” but also “a great opportunity to complement existing training programs” and improve efficiency. In sectors such as agriculture, she highlighted innovative applications like the use of AI to “recognize the sound signature of different pests and then use electrical signals to kill them,” reducing the need for pesticides. However, she warned that the downside is data scarcity, and that “this is something the government must organize,” both in this specific case and “in any kind of traditional sector intervention when it comes to artificial intelligence.”
Pranjal Sharma, for his part, described the current moment as “an age of confusion,” where many companies talk about AI but few have truly integrated it into their operations: “if we look at the real penetration of AI in business operations, we see that it is still in a very early stage,” he said, since “there are still not enough business cases to justify it in terms of return on investment.” Between the proof-of-concept stage and scalability, “everything falls apart,” because “organizations don’t know how to adapt.” According to Sharma, real change will come when “people are ready to know how to use technological tools.”
Jordi Arrufí agreed that there is a gap between expectations and reality: “companies feel some frustration because they had high expectations and are not yet achieving their business goals.” Regarding Spain, he noted that “AI is on the agenda of Spanish companies, particularly to make optimized operations more efficient.”
For the Mobile World Capital executive, “the challenge that India and Spain share is that, in a way, we are adopting AI that is being created by another ecosystem. Usually, the United States leads AI development today, and that’s a major challenge: how can we develop our own AI? Otherwise, we’ll just be integrators — we’ll have large integration companies (…) with many engineers implementing technology, but perhaps not developing their own, which is the big challenge.”
In this regard, Meghna Bal said that “there’s enormous potential for India, Spain, and the EU as a whole. I know it seems like we’ve missed the opportunity when it comes to LLMs (Large Language Models), but the fact is that in our two economies there are situations where localized, highly contextualized solutions are needed, and entire ecosystems can be built around them.”
Pau Solanillas highlighted one of the key aspects of integrating artificial intelligence: trust. “Can we trust AI? Is it transparent enough? This is one of the key questions that many companies, citizens, and institutions are asking: transparency and trust.”
In this sense, Pranjal Sharma pointed out that although “everyone now uses an AI bot, (…) the time you save using Meta, Grok, or Gemini to get work done quickly is lost trying to verify its accuracy. So, in the end, you might spend the same amount of time doing the work.” We are, therefore, “in this process of transition and change, where it hasn’t yet matured, but we’ve jumped into it and claim it’s the final answer to all our problems (…) I think it will take time before humans and AI can have a good relationship.”
Meghna Bal added that “when we talk about trust, there is a lot of room for technological innovation,” though she also saw value in “managing or maintaining a certain degree of uncertainty,” since that will push companies “to innovate to improve and make their products safer.”
Jordi Arrufí shared revealing data: “between 60% and 70% of developers use these tools daily,” but “only 2.7% say, ‘I fully trust the tool.’” He emphasized that “it’s not only about transparency, but also about the business model,” especially regarding the recognition of the data sources that feed language models.
The second part of the session focused on talent as “the oil of the 21st century” and the opportunities for Spain and India to learn from each other and collaborate. Pranjal Sharma explained that India has historically been a powerhouse in IT services but not in technology creation: “India didn’t create the technology; it created a brilliant IT support services model.” Now, the country is seeing the rise of “global captive centers” offering “knowledge-based services,” such as maritime route data analysis for major shipping companies.
Meghna Bal recalled that “technology has been mentioned as a key lever of social and economic progress” since the 1958 science and technology policy. Although India has a large pool of engineering talent, “we still fall short in AI,” partly because “qualifications often determine the type of specialization one chooses.” She proposed that India and Spain merge their strengths: “I think one great strength in Spain and the EU is the creation of intellectual property, something India lacks.” Therefore, it would make sense to “combine these complementary strengths.” The Esya Center director also noted “many opportunities in specific areas — in small language models, for instance — and doing so cost-effectively (…) India’s strength has always been doing tech-related work very efficiently.”
Jordi Arrufí agreed that Spain should focus on its sectors of excellence. “Here, we’re tempted to be Europe’s Silicon Valley in everything, but you can’t be the best at everything.” He pointed out that Spain stands out in sectors such as “life sciences, healthcare — from research to pharmaceutical companies to institutions and hospitals — and the video game sector. Sometimes the challenge is having hybrid talent, that is, talent that’s good in IT but also has domain knowledge in a particular industry.”
He also praised the quality of India’s technical institutions, such as the IIT of Bangalore, “one of India’s top technological training centers with world-class talent. I think that’s something we lack here. We have good institutions (…) but we’re not as excellent as they are.”
Pau Solanillas introduced the session’s final block: “when we think about an AI-driven knowledge economy, how can we ensure it’s inclusive — that it benefits not only big corporations and unicorns, but also small and medium-sized enterprises, especially the smallest ones? And how do we empower and protect underrepresented groups in society, such as women, the unemployed, and people with disabilities?”
In this respect, Pranjal Sharma argued that “India’s greatest achievement in recent years is its digital public infrastructure (…) For example, 500 million people now have a digital bank account (…) It also ensures that government services and social benefits reach directly into the pockets of those who deserve them most.”
Meghna Bal, in turn, stressed that “everything starts with rules. Very often, when we create or think about regulations, unfortunately, our perception of this ecosystem is heavily tied to big tech companies. Yes, they make up a large part of the consumer-oriented AI space, but they’re not everything — and the problem is that many rules are made with them in mind.” When that happens, “you risk wiping out smaller companies, because a small firm will never be able to comply the way a big one does.”
Regarding digital inclusion in Spain, Jordi Arrufí pointed out that “in Spain, between 25% and 30% of IT specialists are women. So, there’s a gap, and that creates bias. One way to address this is by creating role models to inspire women, to inspire children, and so on (…) We need women leading AI projects. That will inspire new generations. The challenge is that if a technology is developed with gender bias, it probably won’t fit its user base.”
As for digital public infrastructure, Jordi Arrufí highlighted the EU Cloud Law as a positive step, since it “aims to establish cloud infrastructure and public cloud technologies here in Europe that are more open and transparent for European clients — and SMEs will likely be the first customer segment.”
“India and Spain could collaborate,” confirmed Pranjal Sharma. “We need to look for opportunities and options where perhaps Spanish and Indian companies can build alternative cloud platforms to compete globally.”
