According to Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology and Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, the government sees artificial intelligence (AI) as a kinetic enabler for the $1 trillion digital economy goal by 2026. However, he said that the world is now also aligning with India’s view that there is a need for guardrails of safety and trust in the area of AI.
Speaking at the 26th edition of the Bangalore Tech Summit 2023, Chandrasekhar said that legislative guardrails are needed to ensure that AI can never be misused or used by bad actors to cause harm. He said the preference is for safe and trusted AI technology that has an unambiguous definition compared to responsible AI, which can be interpreted differently at an individual level. He added that AI is the biggest and most impactful invention in recent times. If harnessed correctly, it can transform sectors such as healthcare, agriculture, governance as well as language translation and inclusion.
Further, Chandrasekhar informed that the government is focused on capturing AI and building the capabilities and data sets and AI-compute and training capacities to build models that will help India’s quest to give better healthcare, education, language translation, and agriculture. He stated that January 10, 2024, will see the launch of the global summit on India AI. The focus would be on AI-related talent, computing, chips, large language models (LLMs), and foundation models.
Regarding the progress in the semiconductor domain, Chandrasekhar said that the country is now designing devices for the AI world, for which there is no legacy. In the last 18-24 months, India has made tremendous progress in areas such as talent, design, and packaging. The government is planning to set up the India Semiconductor Research Centre (ISRC). A few semiconductor fabrication plants are also expected to be built.
