In a first of its kind development, Gem & Jewellery Skills Council of India (GJSCI) has launched a Centre of Excellence (CoE) for Jewellery Artificial Intelligence & Data-science Excellence (J.A.D.E.) in association with Persistent Systems & IIT-Bombay, who will help facilitate the integration of AI, ML and data science techniques into the gem and jewellery industry.

The CoE aims to address the challenges faced by players across the supply chain in the gems and jewellery industry in India. This unique collaboration of industry and academia in the field of AI opens up new possibilities of what the field holds.

Some of the key issues that this collaboration aims to resolve through the application of emerging technologies like AI, ML and various data science techniques include minimising rejections, improving the current poor hit ratio of designs, and delivering high market returns compared to current standards, thereby increasing efficiencies.

It is reported that India’s gems and jewellery industry contributes ~29% to the global jewellery consumption and is home to more than 300,000 gems and jewellery players. It comprises 7% of India’s overall Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and the use of new age technology will further boost the contributions made by this industry.

Anand Deshpande, Founder and Chairman, Persistent Systems believes that data, machine learning and artificial intelligence have the potential of addressing some of the key industry challenges such as improving the efficiency of the supply chain, and improving on the hit ratio etc.  “The transformation of the Gems and Jewellery Industry will deliver significant growth in revenues and jobs,” he said.

“The launch of J.A.D.E. is a historical event combining two of the country’s largest industries i.e. the gems & jewellery industry and the IT Industry on a common platform. The entire gems & jewellery industry has willingly offered their support towards this endeavour which is a technological leap towards a better and brighter future,” said Sanjay Kothari, Chairman, GJSCI.

Talking about the launch, said Prof. Shri. Subhasis Chaudhuri, Director, IIT Bombay said that this integration of one of the oldest industries with one of the most developed and evolved one is something I am really looking forward to.  

To begin with, over the next six months, the project will undertake the use of technology to improve quality checks on jewellery casting.

They also inaugurated a data centre in November, following which the team has already begun collecting information to support and power various artificial intelligence and machine learning models. The press release stated that this project will be undertaken in association with IITB to solve jewellery casting issues faced by gold jewellery manufacturers. The AI and ML techniques will be used to reduce any rework, increase efficiencies and reduce manufacturing costs.