India : A future ‘A I’ Superpower
India is developing Artificial Intelligence rapidly. It’s farms has even started using AI techniques to be more productive.
The foundation of India’s AI strategy, laid out in the National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence, is to leverage this disruptive technology not just for economic and military growth, but for social inclusion as well. The paper calls this concept “AI for everyone.”
The strategy paper details that AI in India can be leveraged to give access to quality healthcare and financial products to people in remote regions, provide real time advice to farmers, build efficient cities and infrastructure to meet the demands of crowded modern cities. The Planning Commission has in reality identified a few priority sectors such as healthcare, agriculture, education, smart cities and smart mobility to encourage AI deployment.
India as an AI Garage
Importantly, the AI national strategy aims to establish the country as an ‘AI Garage’, which will mean that AI technology developed indigenously in India can then be applicable for the whole developing world. The government’s AI mission is to provide a perfect ‘playground’ for enterprises and institutions globally to develop scalable solutions, which can then easily be implemented in the developing and emerging economies.
The opportunity highlights the huge potential for India to become an AI or a solutions provider for 40 % of the world.
India has to start developing AI tools for a range of applications such as reading cancer pathology reports, to tell farmers when to start sowing a particular crop or picking out students who are going to drop out of school. India hopes that with its ‘soft power approach’ to create AI for social impact, it will encourage other AI powers to collaborate more with India – which will consequently give India access to more diverse metadata essential for developing AI solutions for the world.
The AI Startups can Power the Government
According to data intelligence platform, Traxcn, there are 1,566 Artificial Intelligence startups in India – developing warehouse robots to manufacturing smart electric scooters using AI functionalities, to using AI in retail analytics and managing customer health. Some are helping the government to develop smart AI solutions.
Like, Punjab Police, along with Gurugram-based start-up Staqu is using the Punjab Artificial Intelligence System (PAIS), which taps into digitized criminal records and automated facial recognition to retrieve information on suspects. The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) too has called for tenders to implement a centralized Automated Facial Recognition System (AFRS).
The Andhra Pradesh government has started collecting information from a range of databases and processes the information through Microsoft’s machine learning platform, to monitor children to identify and curb school drop-outs.
Again in Andhra Pradesh, Microsoft collaborated with the International Crop Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) to develop an AI Sowing App powered by Microsoft’s Cortana Intelligence Suite. It aggregated data using machine learning and sent advisories to farmers regarding optimal dates to sow. This was done via text messages on feature phones after ground research revealed that not many farmers owned or were able to use smartphones.
The NITI Aayog AI strategy specifically cited this use case and reported that this resulted in a 10-30 per cent increase in crop yield. Karnataka government has entered into a similar arrangement with Microsoft.
Indian Farming uses ‘AI’
Credits BBC
URL : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeU_EYFH1Jk
India’s Role in AI globally
There are many areas where India can excel in AI on the global front. India has a wonderful education system that trains qualified software engineers, which will be a major source of talent for big companies. Moreover, India can play a major positive role in developing key areas such as AI ethics.
The NITI Aayog report in fact recommends setting up a consortium of Ethics Councils in upcoming government research centers such as Centers of Research Excellence and International Centers for Transformational AI, which will focus on developing sector specific guidelines on privacy, security, and ethics.
There is a lot of AI research currently underway in India as well, which can help to solve global issues. Starting with India’s higher education premier institutions such as IITs, which are currently doing a lot of research on AI and incubating AI-based startups. Many Indian and multinational companies are funding this research, for example, IIT Madras Research Park has AI funding from TCS, Ericcson, Intel ReResearch and GE Research.
IIT Madras is also working on AI with several governmental organisations and departments like defense services, Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO), Indian Railways, Chennai Transport Corporation, Port Trust Authority, banks, hospitals, HRD ministry, MeitY, and science and technology department. The Center for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC), a premier R&D organization of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has undertaken robust research in AI, with a focus on image processing, audio assistance, education, health, agriculture, transportation, etc. As AI adoption gains ground, India sees itself in the future as a supplier of advanced AI solutions, which have been developed by solving the country’s complex and multi-dimensional economic and societal challenges, and at an extremely large scale.
