The government has established 20 data and AI labs under the India AI Mission’s India AI Future Skills pillar and plans to add seven more by the end of this month across Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. It plans to expand the number of these labs to 200 by March 2026 to boost access to AI education and training.
The initiative aims to expand further, with a total of 570 labs in emerging urban centres over the next two years, an Information Technology (IT) ministry official said. “We are looking at training a minimum of 150,000 students with the 120-hour course on data annotation, data science, and data analytics,” said the official.
₹68.98 lakh per lab will be provided over three years, minister of state for IT Jitin Prasada told Lok Sabha on Wednesday.
The initiative seeks to expand AI education and infrastructure beyond major urban centres and promote inclusive access to AI education by offering foundational courses.
Prasada said India AI Mission and the National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT) have identified 27 labs in cities such as Gorakhpur, Lucknow, Shimla, Aurangabad, Patna, Buxar, Ropar, Haridwar, etc.
States and Union territories have nominated 174 Industrial Training Institutes and polytechnic institutes for the initiative, with maximum nominations from Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Karnataka.
{{/usCountry}}States and Union territories have nominated 174 Industrial Training Institutes and polytechnic institutes for the initiative, with maximum nominations from Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Karnataka.
{{/usCountry}}A second official said the course has been designed with industry participation and was being delivered through NIELIT. “There will be assessments and certifications for the same.”
The India AI Mission was launched in March 2024, with a budget of over ₹10,000 crore, to increase India’s compute capacity to enable its AI ecosystem to build state-of-the-art AI models.