‘Brain drain is costly’: Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu takes swipe at Indian-origin White House adviser

As India hosts its first-ever India AI Impact Summit, the spotlight has fallen on some of the biggest names in artificial intelligence. Industry leaders including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei were among the global tech figures in attendance at the high-profile gathering.

Also present was Indian-origin White House adviser Sriram Krishnan, who outlined the United States’ vision for AI collaboration with India. His remarks emphasised Washington’s interest in strengthening technological partnerships between the two countries.




However, for Sridhar Vembu, founder of Zoho Corporation, Krishnan’s appearance represented something more complex: the enduring challenge of India’s brain drain.

Taking to X, Vembu reposted a video of Krishnan where he can be seen discussing how the US wants its allies, including India to use American AI. “We want to make sure that the world uses the American AI stack...We also want the world to use our AI model...We want all our allies, including India, to leverage our AI infrastructure,” he said.

In the caption he urged India to "fight hard" to retain its brightest minds, highlighting how losing figures like Krishnan to foreign nations made brain drain "costly." “This is why brain drain is costly and we must fight hard to retain the next generation of talent in India,” he wrote.



Brain drain refers to the large-scale emigration of high-skilled Indian talent to other countries, aimed at better life and livelihood opportunities. Thousands of students go abroad to attend universities or work at companies.

According to NITI Aayog, for every one foreign student that comes to India for higher education, 25 Indians go to foreign universities. In 2024, 13.36 lakh Indian students went abroad for higher studies. The United States remains a primary destination. Indians account for roughly 71 per cent of H-1B visa holders. According to Statista, 283,397 Indian nationals were granted H-1B visas in 2024, a figure that underscores both the global demand for Indian talent and the scale at which skilled professionals continue to move abroad.

In the current background of Trump's agenda against illegal immigration, involving H-1B visas, many Indian-Americans have been forced to return to the homeland. However, Vembu's remarks raise the question if India's is doing enough to retain it's upcoming generation of talent.