SandboxAQ CEO Jack Hidary: India Positioned to Lead the "AI or Die" Era

At WEF, SandboxAQ CEO Jack Hidary said India is positioned to lead an "AI or Die" era as global AI momentum accelerates from policy to clinical validation.

PALO ALTO, Calif., May 7, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Jack Hidary, CEO of SandboxAQ, has framed the current moment as "AI or Die" for companies and governments. In remarks to the Times of India at the World Economic Forum, Hidary argued India is positioned to lead the next phase of AI adoption because roughly 80% of its economy sits in physical-world sectors — railways, energy, telecom, and infrastructure — where AI grounded in physics and chemistry produces measurable outcomes.

India hosted the AI Impact Summit 2026 in New Delhi February 16–21, drawing 100+ countries and producing the New Delhi Declaration on Responsible AI; the government added 20,000 GPUs to the IndiaAI Mission's existing 38,000+. Separately, Phase IIa results for rentosertib — the first fully AI-discovered drug — were published in Nature Medicine.

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Key Highlights

• AI as existential: Hidary frames AI adoption as "AI or Die" for companies and governments — also the title of his forthcoming book.
• India's structural opportunity: roughly 80% of India's economy is physical-world; population of 1.4 billion amplifies scale.
• Drug discovery acceleration: AI compresses 15+ year cancer and Alzheimer's drug discovery timelines as the FDA's draft AI guidance matures in 2026.
• Cybersecurity priority: WEF's 2026 Global Risks Report ranks cyber insecurity #6 among short-term global risks.
• IP creation: AI-driven molecular design could shift India from IP consumer to IP creator.

In Hidary's Words:

"When you look at 80 per cent of the economy in India, it's fundamentally in the real world, not the digital world."

"AI offers both benefits and new vulnerabilities," Hidary said, citing banking, telecom, and public utilities as priority cybersecurity infrastructure.

About SandboxAQ

SandboxAQ delivers AI solutions at the intersection of machine learning and science. Spun out from Alphabet in 2022, the company develops Large Quantitative Models (LQMs) for life sciences, cybersecurity, financial services, navigation, and advanced materials. Visit www.sandboxaq.com.

SOURCE SandboxAQ