Hyderabad: Artificial intelligence (AI) would make people more efficient rather than take away opportunity, Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited chairman Prem Watsa told students at The Hyderabad Public School (HPS), urging them to build enterprises rooted in honesty, integrity and service as India enters what he described as an era of unlimited possibility.In a campus interaction on Saturday, Watsa, who is also an HPS Class of 1965 alumnus, said AI would free people to focus on their larger purpose while helping them perform routine tasks better.Referring to Nvidia chief Jensen Huang, whom he said he had met in Silicon Valley, Watsa said every person had both “a task and a purpose” and that AI would help with the task. Concerns over layoffs, he said, were overstated. Past technological shifts had moved unevenly but produced growth, he told students.“AI is going to be very good for all of you. It’s going to create lots of jobs, lots of opportunity right here in India,” he said.Watsa said India was the best place to invest, pointing to the country’s expanding middle class. If 300 million middle-class Indians became 600 million in a decade, he said, demand would rise across housing, banking and other sectors. “Whatever business you start, it’s going to be successful,” he said, adding that failures were part of learning and should push people forward.Watsa said business could be “a force for good” when companies treated customers and employees well, earned profits and gave back to communities.He advised students to pursue what they loved, think ambitiously and give back, saying, “To whom much is given, much is expected.”The interaction formed part of Watsa’s visit to HPS, where the school felicitated him and laid the foundation stone for a new junior school block named after his father, MC Watsa, who served as principal from 1969 to 1972. Watsa was accompanied by his wife, Nalini Watsa.Recalling his school years, Watsa said he had played table tennis and field hockey. He said sport at HPS had taught him “team spirit” and “the ability to take a loss, to take a win, to learn to fail and to work with others,” describing those lessons as useful throughout life.Watsa, who had lived for a time in the principal’s residence near Begumpet airport, told students coming to HPS felt like coming home.HPS Society president Gusti J Noria said Watsa’s journey from HPS classrooms to global leadership reflected the institution’s enduring values, character and spirit. Naming the junior school block after his father, he said, honoured a former principal, whose contribution remains a part of the school’s story, while creating a space that will shape the stories of children yet to come.
