NITI Aayog's portal to give start-ups access to public data
Government think-tank NITI Aayog has plans to launch a new online portal through which public data will be made available to private entities, including start-ups, announced NITI Aayog's CEO Amitabh Kant at an artificial intelligence (AI) start-up conclave. The move aims to inspire private companies and start-ups to offer innovative solutions to sector-specific problems using emerging technologies like AI. Here's more.
Extant government practices limit the scope of technological research
Kant said that government departments are generally unwilling to share public data with private organizations, a practice which "restricts the scope of technological research". He added that the new portal would remove this bottleneck and would help start-ups go about solving India-specific issues in a data-informed manner. "Start-ups can leverage this data with the use of artificial intelligence," he added.
The leadingIndia.ai initiative
Kant was speaking at the AI Startup Conclave organized by the Bennett University in Greater Noida, as part of the leadingIndia.ai initiative. The initiative is a collaboration between around 100 institutions to promote research in the field of AI, and speed up the adoption of AI-based technologies in the governance of states. leadingIndia.ai is aimed at bringing start-ups, industry, academia, and government together.
The leadingIndia.ai initiative is backed by big players
The leadingIndia.ai initiative is backed by some big players including the likes of Amazon, NVIDIA, edX, the Newton-Bhabha Fund, the Royal Academy of Engineering UK, the Brunel University in London, and University College, London.
Why is AI so important for India and the world?
Kant explained that AI could help increase India's year-on-year growth rate by as much as 1.3%. He added that the government was already working with companies like IBM and Microsoft to make it happen. Furthermore, citing a PricewaterhouseCoopers report, Kant said that AI would drive GDP gains of around $15.7 trillion by 2030 globally, which is more revolutionary than the advent of the internet.
Investment seems to be growing in deeptech
According to an Accenture report, AI has the potential to add $957bn to the Indian economy and increase the country's income by 15% by 2035. Meanwhile, Inc42 Data Labs says that $456mn has been invested in 137 deeptech deals over the last four years.
NITI Aayog recently joined hands with Google to promote AI
The NITI Aayog isn't idling either. Recently, the think-tank, along with Google, released a statement of intent (SoI) geared towards training and incubating Indian start-ups specializing in AI technology. Meanwhile, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had earlier announced that NITI Aayog would launch a national programme to facilitate research in AI-related areas, and foster development and application of AI-based technology.
Challenges and key areas for AI in India
The biggest hurdle for AI in India is to collect, validate, standardize, correlate, archive, and distribute AI-relevant data and make it accessible to organizations, people, and systems, the Task Force on AI constituted by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry had said earlier. Meanwhile, key areas of AI incorporation in India include improving manufacturing, healthcare, agricultural yields, and service delivery systems.
