From the largest-ever Davos delegation to big-ticket investor announcements and critical technology dialogues, India’s unified presence at the global platform was equal parts symbolic and strategic, and most importantly, impossible to ignore. What does India’s position of power mean for leadership, talent, and the future of work?

India’s “Position of Strength”: A Leadership Story

“India will be the fastest-growing of the large economies. And we have numbers now showing that India can maybe make up for 20% of all the global growth. So then India is not only growing for India, but that growth is also contributing to everyone on our planet because that growth is so substantial.” - Borge Brende, President, World Economic Forum

With a nominal GDP of $4.5 trillion, India has surpassed Japan to become the world’s fourth-largest economy. The consensus at Davos 2026 was that India’s rise to the world’s third-largest economy, overtaking Germany was not a question of if, but when. Gita Gopinath, Deputy MD, IMF, asserted that “Without a doubt, India will become the third-largest economy in the world”, pointing to current projections that place the milestone around 2028. However, the deeper challenge brought into the spotlight was about sustaining this growth.

As India’s Union Minister, Mr. Ashwini Vaishnaw, highlighted at the global forum, India’s growth engine is fuelled by four pillars:

• Public investment in physical, digital, and social infrastructure

• Manufacturing and innovation

• Inclusive growth

• And finally, simplification

India’s story in the new world order focuses on large-scale ambitions that are backed by strong reforms and structural changes across sectors. Sustaining this growth demands continuous efforts across the above pillars; efforts focused on further modernizing frameworks, increasing opportunities for public-private sector collaboration, and implementing policies that relentlessly support inclusive growth.

Few economies have attempted to scale structural institutions, technology, and talent simultaneously. India is doing all three. This is where leadership and talent strategy can make a difference. This volume and momentum of growth require leaders who can turn it into sustained enterprise value, expanding organizations, enabling digitization, and reskilling talent at scale.

Manufacturing and AI: The Demand for a New Generation of Leaders

With global diversification away from traditional supply chains in China, India is increasingly attracting large-scale electronics manufacturing, establishing itself as a critical manufacturing hub, globally. An equally consequential theme to emerge out of Davos 2026 was India’s expanding role in shaping the global AI infrastructure. At a time when global investment in AI infrastructure has been steadily growing, India has consistently been cementing its status not just as an adopter of AI but as a builder of the infrastructure that powers it. Today, the country ranks 3^rd in AI preparedness and 2^nd in AI talent globally.

• Manufacturing ambitions and capacity are growing, while dependency on global supply chains is reducing. India is actively building a full-stack semiconductor ecosystem spanning design, fabrication, packaging, materials, and equipment. This end-to-end push paves the way for digital sovereignty and self-reliance.

  
  

• Global companies are taking note. Google’s $15 billion investment to build a gigawatt-scale AI data centre in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh—its largest AI hub outside the US, for instance, reinforces India’s position as a global AI and data centre hub that attracts top tech firms and boosts local innovation, creates employment, and strengthens digital infrastructure.

  
  

• Even at an enterprise level, AI is being embedded in commercial strategy and deal structures. As Mohit Joshi, CEO, Tech Mahindra, pointed out, the global focus on AI has shifted from pure innovation to real-world implementation. His company’s move to introduce a transparent AI-specific metric to reflect how artificial intelligence is priced into client engagements, for instance, reflects this shift. AI is no longer experimental but is now strongly placed as a line item in business models, revenue forecasts, and boardroom discussions.

In essence, manufacturing and AI are converging to create a leadership demand curve. There is now a growing need for AI-native business leaders and not just CTOs, industrial leaders who can operate across technology, engineering, policy, and culture, while navigating geopolitical realities, not in isolation but as integrated systems. Echoing the leadership talent trend we’ve observed over the past few years: Tech fluency is no longer a specialist skill but table stakes, and strategic judgement is the differentiator.

Talent & Leadership Implications: Key Findings

• CEOs as diplomats: Leadership will continue to be influenced by geopolitical volatility. Given current and projected uncertainties, CEOs and senior leaders will be required to operate across policy, trade, and market access constraints, in addition to business strategy, enabling dialogue and collaboration across sectors.

  
  

• Building resilience: A fragmenting global economy would translate into boards and C-suites taking a resilience-first approach to governance, prioritizing scenario planning for supply chains, export controls, data rules, and partner concentration.

  
  

• AI leaders: With India’s position as one of the world’s leading forces in AI, the demand for senior leadership roles in AI and data infrastructure will rise, with a strong focus on widespread implementation and scaling, as well as governance.

As conversations at Davos 2026 framed India not just as an opportunity but as a global talent supply chain, what became clear is that India’s next chapter will be defined by how quickly and inclusively digitally enabled workforces can be built and how effectively leadership pipelines can scale to keep pace with the economy.

Summary

For much of the last decade, India’s story has been one of emerging possibilities. At Davos 2026, this tone shifted, marking a turning point in how India is perceived on the global stage.

For organizations, CEOs, boards, and investors, the takeaway is clear: India’s story is no longer about potential. It’s about ambition, innovation at scale, and sustainable growth. Organizations, global and domestic, will need leaders who match up to this narrative, understanding India’s regulatory landscape, unique digital ecosystems, geopolitical significance, and cultural complexities.

As India takes the spotlight, it’s clear that the next generation of global leadership must be India-fluent.