How are startups in India promoting entrepreneurship, innovation and employment? Discuss the global and domestic challenges in their working and suggest suitable measures to overcome these challenges.

Indian AI startups' reliance on Chinese open-weight models illustrates a global challenge for startups, and IndiaAI's shared compute is a domestic remedy.

• An op-ed (The Hindu, 16 September 2026) says Indian startups increasingly build on Chinese models such as Qwen and DeepSeek and projects that access may face restrictions around late 2028.
• The IndiaAI Mission, approved in 2024 with over ₹10,300 crore over five years, approved 10 providers to supply 18,693 GPUs in its first compute round in 2025.
• The op-ed recommends model-agnostic systems that make switching cheap, and a focus on applications, industrial data and domain-specific fine-tuning.

Use the RDI Fund to show how the state is trying to finance deep-tech startups with patient capital, and the domestic implementation and governance hurdles that slow it.

• The ₹1 lakh crore RDI Fund (Cabinet approval 1 July 2025, launched 3 November 2025) gives low or nil interest long-term loans, equity and fund-of-funds money, not grants, for higher technology readiness levels.
• In September 2026 the TDB paused new applications after its ₹2,000 crore was used up in round one (about ₹2,192 crore approved for 22 firms); over 300 applications were received.
• An August 2026 report found 15 of 22 first-round beneficiaries had investment links with selection committee members; fixes include a multi-year release schedule and public disclosure of beneficiaries.