Since the time he stepped down from his role as Infosys vice-chairman in 2014, Kris Gopalakrishnan has been championing research. In fact, it has been almost five years since he had famously announced a grant of ₹255 crore for a project on a brain research centre, particularly to study age-related disorders such as Alzheimer’s.

He has now endowed more grants that includes a ₹60 crore funding to set up six chairs at his alma mater IIT Madras and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) for computational brain research and a ₹6 crore funding for a multidisciplinary initiative for stem cells research as he believes that stem cells are the new tools that will help humans discover new cures and techniques.

He told a noted financial daily, “I believe that if 50 people work on an area, that’s a decent number and it will start yielding results.” The researchers are also reportedly looking at different aspects of brain computation, using hardware and software, machine learning and artificial intelligence, from the architecture of the brain to the audio circuitry of the brain. “I think we need to be at the forefront of this,” he added.

Earlier this year, Gopalakrishnan had reiterated that reskilling employees for AI is crucial to our advancement. “India has a major challenge of transitioning its young workforce to the fourth industrial revolution called AI after the eras of agriculture, manufacturing and services… As the large workforce is engaged in diverse occupations such as agriculture, manufacturing and white-collar jobs in the services sector, it needs to be re-skilled to sustain the jobs, as AI will replace traditional jobs.” he had said.