India is not your vendor. It's your next competitive advantage.

Why European leaders need to rethink the India relationship & what's happening right now that most are missing.

IndiaAI Startups Global program at STATION F , Paris Credit: IndiaAI / HEC Paris / StationF

My conviction this month: India is no longer your subcontractor. It’s your next strategic partner.

Most European executives I meet still think “offshore” when they hear “India.” Delegate tasks, cut costs, outsource at the end of the chain. That reflex worked for traditional IT. It’s dangerous for AI.

Why? Because AI is not a project you outsource. It involves architectural decisions, ethical trade-offs, a deep understanding of your business context. It’s built through iterations, in contact with real-world usage. That can’t be delegated to a vendor it has to be co-developed with a partner.

The distinction is fundamental: outsourcing means externalizing a defined function. Co-developing means sharing product vision, technology governance, and strategic responsibilities from day one.

India’s ecosystem has profoundly changed. The country is producing 1.5M engineering graduates every year (source: IndiaAI.gov.in), producing deeptech startups with global ambitions, and mastering industrialization at scale. The European companies that will win the AI race won’t be the ones who found the cheapest provider, but the ones who chose the right partners and built a shared vision.

I’m convinced of this because I live it. I run My Data Machine, a Franco-Indian company that produces over one million images per month for e-commerce. Our teams in India don’t receive a fixed brief to execute. They co-build production processes, contribute to the continuous improvement of our platforms, and co-define execution standards. When a client gives us feedback, the teams in Paris AND India decide together how to respond. That’s what co-development means: shared responsibility for the product, not delegation at the end of the chain.

What I’m seeing on the ground: Signals you may have missed

Macron in India this week - for the 4th time This is not a courtesy visit. It's his 4th trip to India since 2018: after strengthening the Strategic Partnership in defence, space, and nuclear energy (2018), co-chairing the G20 (2023), and being Chief Guest at India's 75th Republic Day (2024). France is now the most-invited nation to Republic Day: 6 times. This week, Macron inaugurates the France-India Year of Innovation in Mumbai, then joins the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi. Over 300 exhibitors, 30 countries, 70,000 sqm. This is a strategic signal few European business leaders have noticed.

French corporates are already moving. In October 2025, Capgemini completed its acquisition of WNS, an Indian digital services company, for $3.3 billion. The stated goal: to build a global leader in agentic AI-powered operations. A strong signal that major European corporations no longer see India as just a cost center.

India is sending its AI startups to Europe. Since May 2025, 10 Indian startups selected by the Indian government have been incubated at Station F and HEC Paris as part of the IndiaAI Startups Global program. GenAI, cybersecurity, edtech, drones, earth observation... These startups aren’t coming to execute. They’re coming to co-innovate.

And on the research front. France and India signed an agreement between INRIA and India’s Department of Science and Technology to establish an Indo-French Centre for Digital Sciences. The cooperation now extends to fundamental R&D.

France-India bilateral trade reached $15.21 billion in 2025. France and India co-chaired the AI Action Summit in Paris in February 2025. Both countries declared 2026 the “France-India Year of Innovation.”

The movement is underway. The question is no longer “should we look at India?” but “are we ready to change our perspective?”

Worth reading

• My full analysis: “What if Europe finally saw India as a strategic AI partner?” link coming sooon

• IndiaAI program at Station F / HEC Paris — Details on the 10 Indian startups selected link

Coming up next

• Stack Overflow, Wikipedia, and you — What the collapse of community platforms in the face of AI means for any B2B company sitting on a knowledge asset.

• The data annotation market — The invisible infrastructure of AI, and why it’s a strategic issue business leaders are still ignoring.