Artificial intelligence may be dominated by OpenAI, Google, Anthropic and Nvidia, but TIME’s 2026 AI list points to a broader shift: influence is increasingly being exercised beyond frontier-model labs.
Ten Indian and Indian-origin figures feature on the TIME100 AI 2026 list, spanning enterprise technology, scientific research, healthcare, semiconductors, Indian-language AI, courts and AI governance.
India’s AI Influence Broadens
TIME published its fourth TIME100 AI list on August 27, 2026, naming 100 people across Leaders, Innovators, Shapers and Thinkers.
The more useful takeaway is not the number itself, but the range of work represented. These individuals are involved in different layers of the AI economy, from building models and AI infrastructure to deciding how the technology should be tested and governed.
1. Arvind Krishna
IBM Chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna appears in TIME100 AI’s Leaders category. The IIT Kanpur alumnus has taken a pragmatic approach to enterprise AI, arguing that businesses will not necessarily need the largest models for every application. IBM has invested heavily in smaller, specialised models designed for specific enterprise uses.
His inclusion reflects an important business question around AI: whether companies can generate returns by deploying models efficiently rather than simply spending more on increasingly large systems.
2. Arvind Raman
Arvind Raman works on AI standards and evaluation in the US. He is associated with the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Center for AI Standards and Innovation, putting his work closer to the measurement and governance of advanced AI systems than to commercial model development.
That role is becoming increasingly relevant as governments and companies look for ways to evaluate AI systems for capability, reliability and risk.
3. Anima Anandkumar
Caltech professor Anima Anandkumar is recognised in the Innovators category. Her research focuses on applying AI to scientific and physical modelling, including weather forecasting and other computationally demanding problems.
Her work illustrates a different use of AI: not simply generating text or images, but helping researchers model complex physical systems and accelerate scientific computation.
4. Utkarsh Saxena
Adalat AI co-founder and CEO Utkarsh Saxena is using AI in India’s judicial system. The company says its programmes have benefited more than 6,000 courtrooms across 11 states, while its website separately reports reaching more than 6,000 judges. These figures are company-reported and should not be treated as independently audited statistics.
Saxena’s inclusion highlights how AI applications are moving into specialised institutional workflows, including legal documentation and court processes.
5. Suchi Saria
Suchi Saria, founder and CEO of Bayesian Health, is recognised for applying machine learning to healthcare. Her company’s Sepsis Flagging Device received a US FDA 510(k) decision on April 30, 2026, with the agency determining it substantially equivalent to a legally marketed device.
The FDA describes the software as an adjunctive tool intended to help healthcare providers predict or diagnose sepsis. It is not intended to be the sole factor in determining a patient’s sepsis status.
6. Sanjay Mehrotra
Micron Chairman, President and CEO Sanjay Mehrotra represents the hardware infrastructure behind AI. Micron’s FY2025 revenue rose nearly 50% to a record $37.4 billion, according to the company’s annual results.
Combined revenue from high-bandwidth memory, high-capacity DIMMs and LP server DRAM reached $10 billion, more than five times the previous year.
Those numbers show why memory has become strategically important to AI infrastructure. Advanced models require substantial memory bandwidth, making companies such as Micron part of the economic story behind AI’s expansion.
7. Vivek Raghavan
Sarvam AI co-founder Vivek Raghavan brings an India-specific dimension to the list. Before moving into AI, he worked on technology infrastructure associated with Aadhaar. Sarvam is now focused on AI systems designed around India’s linguistic diversity.
His inclusion reflects the challenge of building AI that works across India’s many languages and user contexts rather than relying exclusively on systems developed for English-speaking markets.
8. Ravi Kumar S
Cognizant CEO Ravi Kumar S appears in the Thinkers category and has been recognised by TIME100 AI for a second consecutive year. His focus includes how companies and workers adapt as AI changes the tasks performed across industries.
For the business-services industry, that question is particularly significant because AI can alter both the delivery of existing services and the skills employers require.
9. Sunny Gandhi
Sunny Gandhi, co-executive director of Encode, represents the policy and advocacy side of AI. Encode works on AI policy and advocacy, including questions around safety and safeguards as increasingly capable systems enter sensitive areas.
His presence on the list reinforces that influence in AI is increasingly extending to debates over regulation and responsible deployment.
10. Meetali Jain
Meetali Jain, executive director of Tech Justice Law, works on legal accountability around technology. Her organisation’s work includes cases and advocacy concerning technology-related harms, including issues involving AI systems and chatbots.
Her inclusion adds another dimension to the list: as AI becomes embedded in products and services, legal questions over responsibility and harm are becoming part of the technology industry’s operating environment.
What The List Signals
The 10 names span almost the entire AI value chain. Krishna and Kumar represent enterprise adoption; Mehrotra represents the semiconductor infrastructure required to run AI; Raghavan and Saxena are applying the technology to Indian-language and judicial use cases; Anandkumar and Saria are applying AI to scientific and medical problems; and Raman, Gandhi and Jain work on standards, policy and accountability.
That breadth is arguably more significant than the headline count. The AI economy is no longer just a race to build increasingly powerful models. It is also a contest over where AI is deployed, how efficiently it runs, how it performs in specialised environments, and what rules govern its use.
For India and its global technology diaspora, the TIME100 AI 2026 list offers evidence of participation across those layers. But it should not be read as a ranking of India’s AI ecosystem. TIME’s list is a selection of influential individuals, not a measure of national AI capability.
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