PM Modi Asks Union Ministries To Embrace AI To Track Socio-Economic Growth

[caption id="attachment_23803" align="aligncenter" width="990"] File photo of Prime Minister Narendra Modi (Image source: @MIB_India)[/caption] In a bid to lead the world in the area of artificial intelligence, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi this week asked the NITI Aayog to acquaint all the ministries with high-end technologies. “China is way ahead of India in a lot of areas but the government does not want to miss the bus this time when it comes to research and adoption of this technology... NITI Aayog has been asked to undertake all possible pilots happening elsewhere in the world, if it addresses India’s problems, so government departments and states are willing to use AI in their day-to-day functioning," a source claimed. According to a report in a financial newspaper, the Indian think tank has also been asked to describe how artificial intelligence will be beneficial to address the most of country’s socio-economic problems. In fact, all central ministries have been asked to set up dedicated AI cells as soon as possible. This directive comes only weeks after the national AI Task Force submitted a report on exploring the possibilities of AI in development across various fields, including industry and research. Following this directive from PM Modi, the NITI Aayog will likely periodically review the progress made by the respective ministries. The AI Task Force has already recommended the following points about AI to the government:

• Leverage AI for economic benefits
• Create policy and legal framework to accelerate deployment of AI technologies
• Create concrete five-year horizon recommendations for specific Government, Industry and Research programs

In the report, the AI Task force has also identified 10 specific domains that need attention with respect to AI. They are, manufacturing, fintech, healthcare, agriculture, education, retail and customer engagement, public utility services, aid for differently-abled persons and accessibility technology, environment and national security. “With rapid development in the fields of information technology and hardware, the world is about to witness a fourth industrial revolution... Driven by the power of big data, high computing capacity, artificial intelligence and analytics, Industry 4.0 aims to digitise the manufacturing sector,” Nirmala Sitharaman, former minister for Commerce and Industry, who had set up the task force, had said in August 2017.