India is quickly establishing itself as one of the hubs for AI innovation in the world. Not only do we have a large number of startups solving uniquely Indian problems with AI solutions, the government has also taken many steps to further solidify India’s position as a future AI leader.

Today, it was announced that India will take over the chair of the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence, an international initiative to ensure the responsible use of artificial intelligence. The committee was founded in 2020—with India as one of the founding members—to tackle topics such as use of AI on grounds of human rights, diversity, inclusion, economic growth, and more. One of its aims is also to support cutting-edge research on responsible artificial intelligence use cases. 

It was reported that India received more than two-third majority vote, ranking above Canada and the United States of America. The minister of state for Electronics and IT, Rajeev Chandrashekar, will represent India at the meeting held today in Tokyo for the symbolic takeover of the position. 

This appointment is merely one among the several achievements that solidify India’s position as a potential leader in the global AI space. The government has also taken many steps to catalyse AI innovation in the country, setting the stage for the next decade of AI innovation. 

Government undertakings to build AI infrastructure

In January 2020, NITI Aayog announced their plan to build out a robust AI infrastructure for enterprise and enthusiast use. In a paper titled, “Establishing an AI Specific Cloud Computing Infrastructure in India”, they described establishing something known as AIRAWAT—an India-first cloud computing infrastructure focused on providing AI-specific services. 

While this platform has not materialised as of yet, the paper described a made-for-AI cloud infrastructure that had support for various features such as a ML and DL software stack, multi-tenant multi-user support, a low-latency high bandwidth network, and a multi-layer storage system to quickly ingest and process multi-petabytes of big data.

Although it is possible for India to become one of the deepest pools for AI talent, many budding developers are crippled by a lack of availability of hardware resources to study algorithms. AIRAWAT is aimed at serving the computing requirements of Centres of Research Excellence, Innovation hubs, and International Centres for Transformational AI. The keen focus on research and development think-tanks is a display of the Indian government’s big picture perspective of the global AI space and their hope to enter it in a grand way. 

Initiatives on the ground to improve AI knowledge and education

Apart from providing the required computing infrastructure for researching AI, the government has also taken steps towards upskilling the population from a young age for AI roles. Recently, the Ministry of Electronics and IT announced an innovation challenge titled, Youth for Unnati and Vikas with AI. Building on an older initiative titled, ‘Responsible AI for Youth’, YUVAi targets children in classes 8–12 and aims to equip them with basic AI skills. Moreover, the programme aims to “empower them to become human-centric designers and users of AI”. 

The government will execute the undertaking in three phases. In the first phase, teachers and students will be onboarded to the platform on a registration basis. Then, students will be put in online orientation sessions and be encouraged to submit ideas for one of eight core AI themes. These themes depict the use of AI in agriculture, healthcare, education, transportation, smart cities, and more. 

A shortlisted group of students will then attend online deep-dive AI training courses and a three-day boot camp run by AI experts. If their projects are selected, students will be provided with apprenticeship and guidance opportunities, and will also be awarded for their projects. 

Key undertakings by the government to boost future of AI

The 2020 Budget saw Digital India receiving nearly $480 million to increase research in AI, IoT, machine learning, and robotics. In addition to this, the government also offered industry-relevant skill training for ten million youth in India for AI and related technologies.

IITs all over the country have collaborated with corporates to establish AI research centres. Some examples include the Robert Bosch Centre for Data Science and AI at IIT Madras, Intel AI Research Center at IIT Hyderabad, IIT Kharagpur IT Innovation Hub, AI Research Lab At Wipro With IISc, and more. These labs offer an opportunity to budding engineers to work with cutting-edge AI research, upskill and deepen the talent pool for the field. 

The government has also launched the India AI portal. This website was developed by MeiTY and the National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM), and provides an important resource to track and be updated with AI innovations in the country. In addition to this, as a part of the new education policy, the National Council of Educational Research and Training will include a basic course on AI at the intermediate level to expose students to certain basic concepts of machine learning. 

While speaking at the Responsible AI for Social Empowerment Summit in 2020, Prime Minister Modi also expressed his desire to make India a global hub for AI. “The teamwork of AI with humans can do wonders for our planet. . . We want India to become the global hub of AI. Our bright minds are already working towards it”, he stated. With the recent moves by the government, India’s positive attitude towards AI development has become clear. As evinced through India’s appointment as the head of the GPAI, we are quickly solidifying our position as a global AI leader. 

“According to the UNESCO Science Report from 2021, India now spends more on Research than France, the UK and Italy. While its citizens are well-aware, it must be mentioned that India has the largest amounts of Digital payments globally! India’s IT and BPM industry’s revenue is estimated at US$227b in FY2022, an increase of 15.5% YOY. The IT industry also employed more than 0.5m employees in FY2022. India is an established talent powerhouse for the IT industry globally.

Little wonder then, that India would remain close to the changing pulse of the IT industry, its new frontiers in AI and ML solution delivery and the beginning of standardisation for AI based solutions. In its own enterprises, government spaces and in its services as IT partners for the enterprises of the world, India continues to lead with AI and ML based solutions. India is, hence, best aware of the changing need of education, research and innovation with AI. Moreover, given the prominent fears with developments in Data and AI on Ethics, Governance and Privacy, India is conscious of how this might impact the future of its citizens. A responsible India is looking to create spaces for such education and awareness in its various national platforms, such as the NITI, in its education and in its laws. It is then, hardly a wonder that India is voted to lead a prestigious GPAI!”