India has been urged to move beyond its application-based layer and focus on providing comprehensive AI capabilities by Amitabh Kant, former NITI Aayog CEO. Addressing the Global IndiaAI Summit, Kant emphasized the need for India to excel in core AI research and development to establish itself as a global leader in the field.
He highlighted that despite generating 20% of global data, India only possesses 2% of the world’s servers and less than 2% of the global computing infrastructure, hindering its growth potential. To address this issue, the government plans to enhance its computing capacity by procuring over 10,000 graphic processing units in the next 18 months.
India’s active participation in AI development is evident through its ranking as the second-largest contributor to GitHub AI projects, accounting for 19% of global initiatives. Kant stressed the importance of tailoring AI solutions to meet the specific needs of different industries to drive innovation and efficiency.
Moreover, out of the INR 10,000 Cr allocated for supporting AI startups under the India AI Innovation mission, over 2,000 Cr will be earmarked for deeptech startups. The government aims to foster innovation in the AI ecosystem through a public-private partnership model to strengthen India’s position in the deeptech sector.
This initiative aligns with the government’s focus on promoting research and development in sunrise sectors by providing interest-free loans and long-term funding support. With plans to roll out a deeptech startup policy, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry aims to create a conducive environment for deeptech startups to thrive and contribute to India’s technological advancement.
