GIM 2024: Anand Mahindra lauds Tamil Nadu bureaucracy, human capital

The Tamil Nadu Global Investors Meet 2024 saw the presence of many key Indian business leaders and Anand Mahindra, Chairman of Mahindra Group, was one of them. Delivering the keynote address on the topic ‘Tamil Nadu as an ideal investment destination’, Mahindra spoke about the state’s high-quality human resources and strong bureaucracy as major strengths.

“When Ford set up its operation in India in a joint venture with the Mahindra Group, Tamil Nadu was not our choice. We were looking for locations in the north. It was the Ford team that told us Tamil Nadu is the place to be. The quality of human resources is great. The Ford experience helped me make a personal decision to set up Mahindra Research Valley here,” said Mahindra, who has done his schooling in Lovedale in Tamil Nadu. “I felt research is about talent, intelligence and creativity. The Mahindra Research Valley is the pride of our business and group with blockbuster products,” he added. The leading industrialist also opened up about artificial intelligence (AI) and stated that while AI was impressive, it could not replace human experience. Mahindra explained that he tried to use ChatGPT to find out why Tamil Nadu was a good investment destination and while it gave some salient points, it didn’t offer human experience.

“I used ChatGPT to find out why investing in Tamil Nadu will be a great idea it gave good responses like robust infrastructure, skilled workforce, well-developed ports, good educational system power, and government support. I could have had a perfectly drafted speech by ChatGPT to deliver here but everything that ChatGPT does is aggregate data and what it doesn’t do and that a human being can do is capture the human experience of being in Tamil Nadu,” said Mahindra.

“AI is a very superficial collector of data; however, life and truth is not just about data. It is more about the story we experience and we create. Technological changes are always frightening. AI will become a companion to creative minds,” said the business leader dismissing the idea that AI would take over from humans at some point.