Explaining Divergent Artificial Intelligence Readiness in ‎South Asia: A Comparative Study of India and Bangladesh

Abstract

Despite a shared colonial past, geographic proximity, and similar form of democratic ‎government, Bangladesh has consistently scored lower than India in the Government AI ‎Readiness Index (GARI). This research attempts to answer why structurally similar countries ‎differ in their readiness for AI. This study combines Most Similar Systems Design with ‎qualitative policy analysis to help identify the roots of this gap at the level of indicators as ‎defined in the GARI 2025 pillars. Bangladesh significantly lags behind India in terms of ‎computing power, data quality, maturity of AI industry, and safety and security. The study ‎incorporates the historical institutionalism, the state capacity model, the innovation systems ‎theory and proposes that the differences can be attributed to institutional capacity, policy ‎coherence, technological ecosystems and human capital development. These are emerging as ‎the key enablers of India’s edge early policy implementation, strong public-private partnerships ‎and a strong and established innovation ecosystem. The study recommends Bangladesh to ‎emphasize on strategic coordination, human capital investment and governance reform. This ‎study has been conducted within a framework of causal theory, comparison of India and ‎Bangladesh, and adds to the existing literature on AI governance in the Global South.