First Edition of IndiaAI report submitted to Centre, MoS IT says it would be 'guiding roadmap' for AI ecosystem

After months of research, the first edition of the IndiaAI report has been handed over to Union Minister of State for Skill Development & Entrepreneurship and Electronics & IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar. 

The report was worked upon by the seven working groups of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). On Friday, Chandrasekhar said the report would serve as India’s guiding roadmap for the development of its AI ecosystem.

Chandrasekhar said: “After months of dedicated research, the seven working groups that were constituted to build the core goals of the IndiaAI program, have submitted their formal report today. This comprehensive report lays out what will be the fulcrum of the IndiaAI strategy that was envisaged by PM Modi. He had talked about India for AI and AI for India. Through this roadmap IndiaAI will work to be a kinetic enabler of the 1 trillion dollar digital economy.”

The working groups detailed the operational aspects of establishing Centers of Excellence (CoEs), and the institutional framework governing data collection, management, processing and storage by the National Data Management Office (NDMO). 

The report also has recommendations on how India can leverage its demographic dividend and play to its strengths as an IT superpower to further the penetration of AI skills in the country, strengthening the AI compute infrastructure in India to support AI innovation through public-private partnerships (PPPs).

The report provides the recommendations on Design Linked Incentive (DLI) Scheme that aims to offer financial incentives as well as design infrastructure support to domestic companies and start-ups/MSMEs.

The objective of this exercise was to undertake a comprehensive study of all the pillars of IndiaAI and to identify tangible next action items that need to be worked on to achieve the goal of “AI for all”.

The IndiaAI programme has a mission-centric approach, which ensures a precise and cohesive strategy to bridge the gaps in the existing AI ecosystem viz-a-viz compute infrastructure, data, AI financing, research and innovation, targeted skilling and institutional capacity for data to maximise the potential of AI for advancing India’s progress.

Chandrasekhar stated that IndiaAI will not only catalyse and support the startup and entrepreneurship ecosystem but also other areas like that of the India datasets program and India AI Compute Platform. 

He added: “One crucial component will be that of India Datasets Platform, which will be one of the largest collections of anonymised datasets that will be used by Indian researchers to train their multi-parameter models. Then there will be the India AI Compute Platform, a public-private partnership project that will create substantial GPU (Graphics processing unit) capacity for our startups and researchers. In addition to skilling, India AI will also support the development of AI chips in partnership with the Semicon India program.”

Also read: US, India shares vision around technology, AI

Also read: 'Very concerned about arrest of top Lava executive': MoS IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar

Also read: MoS Rajeev Chandrasekhar On Micron's Semiconductor Plant In Gujarat, India