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Cabinet clears AI mission with ₹10,372 crore outlay
The project aims to establish the country as AI leader by building infrastructure, upskilling workforce, and fostering innovation.
The Cabinet on Thursday approved the national IndiaAI mission with a budget outlay of ₹10,371.92 crore in a major push for the country to become an artificial intelligence hub by developing large language models, building AI infrastructure and upskilling its workforce.
The IndiaAI Mission aims to establish the country as a leader in AI through initiatives like developing computing infrastructure involving over 10,000 GPUs (graphics processing units) in partnership with the private sector, setting up an AI datasets platform to give startups and researchers access to non-personal data and other measures to foster innovation.
“It will act as a one-stop solution for resources critical for AI innovation,” the Union ministry of electronics and information technology (Meity) said in a statement following a Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“The Prime Minister has democratised technology. With the AI mission, we will now make computer power available to innovators, start-ups, students, and educational institutions, “ Ashwini Vaishnaw, the Union minister for IT said.
“AI is going to be the kinetic enabler for India’s digital economy. Prime Minister Modi ji has always said that India is going to fully exploit the power of AI for the benefit of its citizens and for the expansion of its economy,” said the minister of state for Meity, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, who also holds the portfolio for skill development and entrepreneurship.
To build up the compute capacity in the country, this mission will also design an AI marketplace that will offer AI as a service and pre-trained models to AI innovators.
The AI mission will establish an IndiaAI Innovation Centre to develop and deploy indigenous Large Multimodal Models (LMMs) and domain-specific foundational models in critical sectors.
The move comes as AI technologies such as ChatGPT spark a global frenzy and countries race to keep pace by regulating their development and use. India’s AI market is projected to reach $7.8 billion by 2025, according to one estimate cited by the IndiaAI website.
The plans align with recommendations by a government working group last year, which suggested monetising non-personal data through a marketplace to drive AI development while preserving privacy, mooting a marketplace called the India Dataset Platform (IDP).
Seven components are largely what an expert group of seven working groups had recommended in their report that was released by Chandrasekhar in October 13.
The mission will also focus on increasing the number of AI courses at undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral levels through IndiaAI FutureSkills. Data and AI Labs will also be set up in tier 2 and tier 3 cities to teach foundation level courses, the government announced.
Thursday’s announcement come as revolutionary AI tools rapidly emerge and their potential threats — from perpetuating biased algorithms to existential risks — have propelled countries to urgently explore ways to govern the technology’s growth while also focussing on the need to stay abreast of innovations.
“Recognizing the need for adequate guardrails to advance the responsible development, deployment, and adoption of AI, the Safe & Trusted AI pillar will enable the implementation of responsible AI projects including the development of indigenous tools and frameworks, self-assessment checklists for innovators, and other guidelines and governance frameworks,” the statement said.
