Soumitra Dutta's Network Readiness Index 

Soumitra Dutta's Network Readiness Index highlights India's AI potential

Soumitra Dutta, Oxford Dean (Former) has been studying AI for almost four decades The Chandigarh-born academic and policy thinker co-created two of the world's most influential global benchmarking tools, namely, the Global Innovation Index and the Network Readiness Index. When AI has been dominating headlines, these indices are super relevant.

An alumnus of IIT-Delhi, Soumitra Dutta went on to earn a PhD in computer science and artificial intelligence from the University of California, Berkeley. He spent more than 20 years as an academic at INSEAD in France, one of the world's most prestigious business schools, and later became the founding dean of the SC Johnson College of Business at Cornell University in the United States. From 2022 to 2025, Dutta served as the dean of Oxford's Said Business School. Impressive, right? He is also a prolific author and researcher, with publications spanning Big Data, corporate venture capital and the geopolitics of emerging technology.

While straddling elite academia and global policy circles, Soumitra Dutta co-founded the Portulans Institute, a Washington D.C.-based non-profit research institution that publishes the Network Readiness Index annually. The NRI is a detailed assessment of more than 100 economies along the parameters of Technology, People, Governance and Impact. Governments in the developing world use it to identify gaps and benchmark progress.

The NRI 2025, titled "AI Governance in a Global Context", was released in early February in Dubai. India's performance was a standout. The country climbed four spots to rank 45th globally.

India topped the world in AI scientific publications, ICT services exports, annual telecom investment and e-commerce legislation. But there’s more. It secured second place globally for fibre-to-the-home internet subscriptions, international bandwidth and mobile broadband traffic.

What makes India's performance particularly notable is the context in which it was achieved. The country is outperforming what its income level would typically predict. "Countries like China (24th), Vietnam (40th), India (45th), and the Philippines (66th) are punching far above their weight class, proving that national policy and institutional capacity can leapfrog traditional economic barriers," wrote Soumitra Dutta, Oxford Dean (Former).

The AI India Summit in New Delhi — which brought together more than 20 heads of state, nearly 60 international ministers and over 500 senior business leaders — brings the latest NRI findings into sharp focus. "India is an ideal hub for AI transformation," said former UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at the summit. The NRI shows he’s bang on point.