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New Delhi, Feb 16 (PTI) When you open an AI chatbot, generate an image, or use a smart app, it feels seamless, polished and effortless. But beneath that sleek interface lies something most users never see — a vast global web of developers quietly building the digital foundations that make it all work.

Software developers are the invisible architects of the AI age, and India stands at the centre of this all, OpenUK CEO Amanda Brock said in an interview with PTI Videos on Monday.

“Everybody goes to a pizza restaurant and talks about the toppings. They don’t talk about the base because the base is standard. But when you take that base away, what you’ve got is a sloppy mess,” she said.

The toppings are the flashy AI and technology products. The base is the open source, which is the shared code, data sets, tools, and infrastructure that developers around the world build together. The technology powers cloud platforms, mobile apps, cybersecurity tools, and increasingly artificial intelligence systems. It is rarely glamorous, but without it, the digital economy would wobble. And this base, to a large extent, is built collaboratively, she explained.

Across time zones, developers contribute to shared repositories, fix bugs, review code, and improve models. Platforms like GitHub act as the digital workshop where this collaboration happens. Updates are tracked, contributions are logged, and improvements become reusable for the next innovator. Open source doesn’t just build software; it lowers barriers. It allows a student in New Delhi to contribute to the same ecosystem as an engineer in London or San Francisco. That is what makes it powerful.

India is at the centre of this story.

According to GitHub’s Octoverse 2025 report, India now has over 21.9 million developers on the platform. It is the fastest-growing developer community in the world and currently the largest contributor base to open source globally. In 2025 alone, more than 5 million new developers joined from India.

This scale matters; it means a massive pool of talented students, engineers, researchers, and freelancers contributing to global projects that power AI systems and digital services worldwide. India is no longer just consuming technology. It is helping build the foundation, Brock said, adding that there’s an important nuance.

“We are your (India’s) second biggest collaborator in the UK, but you are one of, if not the biggest, in terms of the number of individuals and their skills. What we see is this dramatic increase in the number of people contributing from India. The concern is that you don’t have as many projects or companies coming out of India,” she pointed out.

So, while India leads in sheer numbers of contributors, the number of globally dominant open-source projects and large-scale tech companies emerging from that base is still evolving. Experts like Amanda believe that the country has depth of talent, but the next leap is about institutional leadership and support, she added.

As AI systems grow more powerful, the conversation shifts from just building to governing, Brock said, adding that regulation must be smart and targeted, especially in sensitive sectors like healthcare and finance, without suffocating innovation.

“AI should be a tool that serves humanity…humanity should not serve AI,” she said, adding that the challenge for policymakers is to protect citizens while ensuring innovation remains dynamic and open.

The world may celebrate the AI ‘toppings’, but it is India’s growing community of developers and millions like them worldwide who are quietly baking the base. And without the base, everything else could just be shaky.

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