34-year-old Delhi man is earning Rs 18,000 per hour by training AI models
A Delhi-born entrepreneur, now living in the UK, is quietly earning around Rs 18,000 per hour by helping train advanced AI systems, driven more by curiosity than cash.
At a time when side hustles are often linked to quick riches or a career pivot, a 34-year-old entrepreneur with roots in Delhi has taken an unusual path. Despite running his own company and having a deep academic and corporate background, Utkarsh Amitabh decided to spend a few hours every night training artificial intelligence models, not because he needed the income, but because the work really interested him.
Now based in the UK, Amitabh earns around Rs 18,000 per hour through a freelance role with data-labelling and AI training startup Micro1. The assignment began in January 2025 and has added up to approximately Rs 2.6 crore including bonuses in less than a year. Yet, according to Amitabh, financial rewards were never the primary attraction.
Speaking to CNBC Make It, he explained that he was not actively looking for another job when the opportunity arose. What caught his attention was the nature of the work. Training on enterprise-grade AI systems is closely aligned with his long-standing research interests around technology, human achievement and decision-making in an AI-driven world. To him, the freelance role felt less like extra work and more like an extension of what he was already thinking and writing.
Amitabh’s resume helps explain why this job feels like a natural. He studied mechanical engineering at the Delhi College of Engineering before going to Oxford University for a master’s degree in moral philosophy. He later spent six years at Microsoft, where he worked on cloud and AI partnerships. Additionally, he also published research on how artificial intelligence can help shape ideas about success and human potential. Today, he is the Founder and CEO of Network Capital, a global mentorship platform.
His AI training work happens quietly at night, usually after his one-year-old daughter goes to sleep. On most days, he spends about three and a half hours carefully testing AI models with complex business scenarios. This work is not for casual quick writing. This involves detecting when models misunderstand the context, identifying weak logic, and reorganizing signals so that the system can learn more accurately over time. In many cases, breaking down and refining a single problem set can take hours.
According to Amitabh, the work demands utmost focus and patience. He describes it as mentally intense but deeply gratifying. While the machine gets better with each iteration, he believes the humans involved also sharpen their thinking in the process. He says that mutual learning is what keeps the work engaging instead of tiring.
Despite earning a good amount, Amitabh still believes that money is secondary. What was more important was intellectual alignment and fair compensation for specific effort. He has consistently emphasized that although financial incentives are important, they should reflect the values and skills required, and not act as the sole reason for taking the job.
The platform he works with, Micro1, was founded in 2022 and has quickly built a global network of over two million experts. These contributors help train and refine AI systems used by leading AI labs and Fortune 100 companies. The company, worth about $500 million, sees its expert workforce as key to improving data quality, especially as AI systems move from information that is readily available online.
