Speaking at the RAISE 2020 — Responsible AI for Social Empowerment — event, Arvind Krishna, the CEO of IBM, announced the set up of AI Centre of Excellence in partnership with Government e-Marketplace.
“I’m happy to announce that we are creating an AI Centre of Excellence in partnership with a government e-marketplace, or GEM,” said Krishna.
A global artificial intelligence summit — RAISE 2020 has been organised by the government of India in partnership with industry and academic experts. In an attempt to create a conference for a global meeting of minds to exchange ideas, RAISE will charter a course to use AI for social empowerment, inclusion, and transformation in key sectors of healthcare, agriculture, education and smart mobility amongst others.
While speaking at the day-one of the event, Krishna stated that artificial intelligence is one of the biggest technology revolutions of the current time, and he believes that the country is uniquely positioned to lead that revolution.
At a global level, not only AI has the potential to unlock $15.7 trillion in productivity by 2030, but also has the potential to boost economic growth and improve the livelihoods of millions around the world, said Krishna.
Currently, In India, IBM is collaborating with Karnataka government Niti Aayog to deploy precision agriculture solutions that combine AI and weather data, helping farmers to make better decisions. “This platform’s critical capabilities are developed by our teams in India,” said Krishna.
Challenges With Getting AI Right
Arvind Krishna, while speaking at the summit, stated the challenges that exist while implementing artificial intelligence.
“Getting AI done right can be difficult, as we are only at about 4% into the journey, globally,” said Krishna. “A greater adoption of AI is driven by data, craft and skills, and this is where India should focus its efforts.”
In fact, according to him, to run artificial intelligence, one needs good data, and the value comes from how one refines it and applies the same.
According to him, the second imperative is trust. “Trust is paramount, especially when you apply AI in highly regulated and safety-critical domains like healthcare instead installing crops in AI means avoiding bias, being explainable and being able to reproduce results,” said Krishna.
And the third imperative, mentioned by Krishna, was skills. “Building AI models can be a labour-intensive task, and there’s a massive skill shortage on AI,”
For this, IBM made heavy investments in creating the future of Indian skills through IBM’s ‘Stem for Girls’ initiative, where the company is teaching 80,000 girls across India to code and build AI models. “And our goal is to reach 200,000 students by 2022.”
IBM, even earlier in July, collaborated with CBSE to integrate artificial intelligence into the curriculum of 200 schools across India. “All of this will harness the immense energy of India’s youth and help the country apply the power of AI to solve deep societal problems.”
IBM is currently ready and committed to partner with the government to bring artificial intelligence together with hybrid cloud, along with quantum computing to have a profound impact on every sector of society, concluded Krishna.
