Rural India’s AI boom: 200,000 workers in villages label data for global AI, driving economic growth.

Rural India is emerging as a global hub for artificial intelligence, with an estimated 200,000 workers in villages and small towns performing data labeling and annotation—key tasks for training AI systems used in self-driving cars and facial recognition. Many, including women from tribal and conservative backgrounds, balance night shifts with farming, using improved internet access to contribute to international projects. Supported by government initiatives and investments from U.S. tech giants, India now ranks third globally in AI capability, with AI work expanding beyond major cities into remote areas, fostering economic independence, education, and micro-entrepreneurship.