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Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar on Friday unveiled a comprehensive roadmap for India’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) programme which serves as the primary or fundamental blueprint for the broader National Strategy for Robotics. He discussed two major developments, which are the culmination of a deep and multi-year AI strategy and the initiation of a national robotics policy, to position India as a major player in the global AI and robotics landscape.

The minister acknowledged the substantial work of six working groups on AI. With the mission to address the six fundamental goals of the India AI programme, these groups have formed a comprehensive report that will serve as the core of India’s AI strategy. Chandrasekhar said that this roadmap is not about chasing trends, such as generative AI, but is a strategic initiative that will pave the way for India’s future in the tech world.

Key highlights of India’s AI and robotics strategy include:

$1 Billion Digital Economy: The primary goal of India’s AI strategy is to be a kinetic enabler of a $1 billion digital economy. This ambitious target seeks to harness the potential of AI to drive economic growth and innovation.

Real-life Use Cases: The minister stated that AI can transform many sectors and stimulate India’s startup and entrepreneurship ecosystem. So, now there will be more core sectors such as fintech, governance, and education to focus on along with the four key sectors mentioned in the draft National Strategy on Robotics—agriculture, healthcare, national security, and manufacturing.

Components: The strategy includes crucial components, such as the India Datasets Platform, collaboration with academic institutions for Centers of Excellence, skill development initiatives, design support, nurturing AI startups, financial incentives akin to those successfully implemented in the semiconductor industry via the PLI scheme, a public-private partnership (PPP) model for AI compute infrastructure, and a notable prospect involving AI chips. This opportunity will involve a partnership between India AI and Semicon India, aimed at providing funding for the advancement of the next generation of artificial intelligence chips and computing hardware.

Robotics Strategy: The ministry has released the National Strategy for Robotics and it is open for public consultation, which invites inputs from various stakeholders, including startups, researchers, enterprises, and manufacturing companies. Chandrasekhar said that the robotics policy will address matters related to Industry 4.0 and robotics, aligning it with the broader AI strategy.

In terms of implementation, Chandrasekhar explained to News18: “There will be a centre of excellence for that particularly, which will have an ecosystem of startups, companies, academia, and government partnering around the COE. They will use the dataset platform which will have the necessary datasets that will train their model and they will develop their own datasets that they want. And the government will provide support in terms of funding to the startups in some cases. The government will also provide infrastructural support for AI computing infrastructure to train that model.”

It needs to be understood that a vital aspect of the India AI programme is the aggregation and availability of diverse datasets in one place to meet the multi-parameter requirements of AI models and serve as foundational models for training. These datasets will be made available in an integrated manner through the India Datasets Platform, managed by an independent office within the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). These datasets will include government and private sector data, all anonymized and void of personal data.

“The core outcome that it brings together in a very comprehensive manner to build India AI is going to be intact. There is no doubt that India wants to be a major player in the future of AI. Indian startups, academia, and companies have to and must be major participants in AI and shaping the future of AI,” the minister noted.