Government of India had launched the IndiaAI Mission on March 7, 2024, to bolster India’s global leadership in artificial intelligence (AI) and democratise the benefits of AI across all strata of society. To realise this vision, IndiaAI Mission has launched seven key pillars to strengthen the domestic AI ecosystem.

The ‘Safe and Trusted AI’ pillar within this initiative emphasises the need for a balanced, technology-enabled, and India-specific approach to AI governance. This involves the development of indigenous technical tools, guidelines, frameworks, and standards that are contextualised to India’s unique challenges and opportunities as well as our social, cultural, linguistic, and economic diversity.

To advance this vision, the IndiaAI Independent Business Division (IBD) issued first round of Expression of Interest (EoI) and selected eight projects to promote responsible AI across a range of critical themes. These include machine unlearning, synthetic data generation, AI bias mitigation, privacy-enhancing tools, explainable AI, AI governance testing, AI ethical certification and algorithm auditing tools.

Further, to provide an opportunity to explore the potential of AI in addressing critical challenges, IndiaAI has launched the second round of EoI, open to Indian academic institutes/organisations, autonomous bodies, research and development (R&D) institutes/organisations, start-ups and companies. The deadline for application submission is January 9, 2025.

The following themes have been identified, against which organisations may submit their proposals to develop practical tools and frameworks, in collaboration with other partners:

  • Watermarking and labelling: Develop tools to authenticate AI-generated content, ensuring it is traceable, secure, and free of harmful materials.
  • Ethical AI frameworks: Establish AI frameworks that align with global standards, ensuring AI respects human values and promotes fairness.
  • AI risk assessment and management: Create risk management tools and frameworks to enhance the safe deployment of AI in public services.
  • Stress testing tools: Create stress-testing tools to evaluate how AI models perform under extreme scenarios, detect vulnerabilities, and build trust in AI for critical applications.
  • Deepfake detection tools: Create deepfake detection tools to enable real-time identification and mitigation of deepfakes, preventing misinformation and harm for a secure and trustworthy digital ecosystem.

This initiative aligns with the Government of India’s vision of leveraging AI for inclusive growth.