Why AI is being trained in rural India

India’s small towns are becoming key players in artificial intelligence development, led by companies like NextWealth. Headquartered in Bangalore, NextWealth employs 5,000 staff across 11 rural centres, tapping into a vast pool of first-generation graduates. Co-founder Mythily Ramesh emphasizes that 60% of India’s graduates come from small towns, yet most IT firms recruit only from metros—leaving immense talent untapped.
NextWealth began with back-office outsourcing but pivoted to AI five years ago. Today, 70% of its work comes from U.S. clients, involving tasks like data annotation and model fine-tuning. One such employee is Dhanalakshmi Vijay, a computer science graduate from a farming family, who now fine-tunes AI models to improve their accuracy in real-world applications like online shopping. The company also promotes inclusivity—60% of its workforce are women, many in their first salaried roles. Despite challenges like internet reliability and client perceptions, NextWealth and similar firms like Desicrew are proving that rural India can deliver world-class AI services. With AI and GenAI projected to create 100 million jobs globally, India’s small towns could become the backbone of this digital revolution, much like they did for IT services two decades ago.