Data and AI are the two centrepieces having the potential to address dual goals of economic and social value creation and recovery, helping India realise the vision for 2025. Countries that are actively promoting data utilization and AI are driving initiatives across these 5 building blocks – Strategy, Data, Technology Stack, Talent, and Execution.

NASSCOM recently launched a crucial report on “Unlocking Value from Data and AI – The India Opportunity”. The report highlights how harnessing the power of data and AI can help India in delivering economic value and realizing the vision of inclusive development, making increased adoption of data and AI services in India an imperative. This article focuses on identifying the fundamental blocks critical for promoting data utilization and AI adoption for realising India’s vision for 2025. Countries that are actively promoting data utilization and AI are driving initiatives across these 5 building blocks.

1. Strategy

• Develop a data and AI vision for the country
• Identify priority use cases
• Create an integrated action plan
• Prepare a long-term implementation plan for the program and commit funding

2. Data

• Identify data sets required to unlock priority use cases
• Assess quality and align on gaps to be filled
• Develop programs to generate and provision data and derived services at-scale
• Institute data governance policies

3. Technology Stack

• Create platforms to securely host data, AI services, models, open-source libraries, applications and testbeds
• Formulate policies to ensure the security, reliability, interoperability and economic viability of the stack
• Design programs for components and enabling infrastructure

4. Talent

• Define capabilities as well as standards for training and certification for AI roles
• Estimate demand-supply gaps in AI workforce and develop a talent strategy
• Develop programs to address gaps by attracting, developing and upskilling talent at-scale

5. Execution

• Design a national program for AI and empowered central apex body to spearhead it
• Define structures, roles and processes to enable various stakeholders to effectively collaborate
• Formulate programs to empower the ecosystem for innovation and adoption
• Instate an independent body to define and enforce AI policies

It is critical that a coordinated action plan is designed across these 5 building blocks to help accelerate India’s journey towards its vision for 2025.

Learnings from global case studies: Case in Point – Singapore

Countries proactively leveraging data and AI have taken actions across the five building blocks. Let us take the example of Singapore.

Given India’s scale and complexity, the global learnings will require tweaks and tailoring to make them work in the India specific context. Refer my article on Community – by NASSCOM insights on the topic for more related work and download the full report on “Unlocking Value from Data and AI – The India Opportunity” for more details on each of the construct and other global case studies.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay