Today, India has made significant progress in the field of AI, which is globally sought after. Such success and progress definitely require efforts from the government, researchers, academia, businesses, innovators, engineers, and industry leaders. All of whom have critical roles to play to make AI a success in India. 

Debjani Ghosh, President NASSCOM, recently got into a fireside chat with Saurabh Gaur, Joint Secretary at Meity, who is also leading the operational plan for the National AI Mission. The discussion aimed to understand his perspective and the role of the government in making the mission a success.

Saurabh started the discussion by talking about the pillars on which the National AI Mission should be built. The pillars being: Core research & applied research, transforming it into an application, providing the data, compute infrastructure, skilling, and having an ethical framework.

With respect to research, various institutions like IITs and IIITs are working towards bringing the research into applications with the help of business incubation units set up by the government. The mission is extensively identifying various high-value datasets and looking for data exchange with multiple states. Saurabh added that the mission is aiming to match the demand side to the supply side.

The mission is also focusing on AI skilling in collaboration with NASSCOM under the FutureSkills program. Through this program, small and mid-level AI practitioners can gain experiential training under industry leaders and industry stalwarts. 

The government initiative aims to provide financial support, both in the form of equity or grant, to startups at different stages of development with an aim to boost participation and innovation, with around 5000 startups already engaged with the mission. Saurabh also stressed setting ethics councils and training regulators to take care of ethical development and deployment of AI systems.

On critical aspects of privacy and security, while dealing with high-value data sets, Saurabh shared about establishing a National Data Office, which is going to be monitoring and managing development, consolidation, and publishing of data of national importance. National Data Office will be hosting data from the public sector, private sector, and from data evangelists, and the data will be further shared through this office.

Approx 450 data officers are engaged in maintaining privacy and security by laying out clear Dos and Don’t of data sharing along with robust data protection and data governance frameworks. Along with the legal and regulatory framework, the National AI mission focuses on providing data as a service (DaaS) which will take care of data curation, data structuring and data anonymization.

Saurabh also explained how the government initiative around modern data licensing would take care of privacy and security while sharing data among various stakeholders.

Debjani expressed her elation to these areas of focus and said, “This definitely shows the holistic approach in the work going on around data while taking care of privacy and security at each level. While India is a data rich country, our ability to have the right governance structure around data will determine whether we will be able to use this data productively and securely for the country or not.” 

Collaborations are critical to the success of the national AI mission, and hence the role of industry, academia, government, and startups makes a huge difference. Industry champions, leaders, startup ecosystem that can act as a bridge between the industry and the government. The mission aims to deploy AI solutions and other emerging technologies efficiently. 

Debjani and Saurabh both discussed how the financing for AI under the initiative from the government is so essential, as this would avoid any monopoly or just a few players dominating the landscape. This would give a fair chance and a level playing field across various sectors. This is important for India as India is still setting up the foundation for a robust AI ecosystem.

The discussion also included aspects like talent and skilling being critical for the success of AI. In line with that, we need more technical capabilities and the involvement of people at all levels. Industry, academia, and government can encourage more participation through training, exchange programs, rewards, and including AI and data science in the various curriculum. 

Around the end of the discussion, Saurabh brought forward an important point: the need for these startups that are being supported and boosted here in India to stay in India and not get bought by foreign investors. In the long run, the progress of AI in India depends mainly on the innovation made through these startups at all levels and across various sectors.