Our folks have gone gaga over the incredible capabilities of Conversational AI. Chat GPT from the house of OpenAI, turned into a viral sensation within days of its launch and dominated the narrative on everyone’s lips. OpenAI has gone one up on the capability curve with Chat GPT4, an advanced language model with multi-modal inputting, greater limits on text prompts and reasoning abilities. But recent news should make every Indian’s bosom swell with pride. India is now the top country when it comes to AI skill penetration and AI talent concentration. India's 'AI Skills Penetration Factor' stands at 3.09 - the highest among all G20 and OECD countries.

It’s heartening to see the strides India has taken on the AI expressway. A nation soaked in history and tradition has come a long way and is now well-positioned to lead the next wave of disruptive AI innovation. Many reasons will fuel our AI growth engine. First, is the country’s unmatched talent pool. Indian tech talent has three times more AI skills than other countries. What’s more with 1.6 million digital talent, India has become a coveted talent destination. The demand for data science and AI professionals in the country is on an upswing- it is set to breach the one million mark by 2024. The top five roles -ML engineer, data engineer, data scientist, data architect, and DevOps engineer, will account for 73 per cent of all AI job openings in India.

Per the estimates of Nasscom, AI-led disruption in the country's core sectors has a potential impact of $500 billion on India's economy in gross value added (GVA) terms by 2026. The AI ecosystem is booming too. There are 1900+ AI-focused startups working on solutions in spaces like conversational AI, video analytics, deep fakes detection, and disease detection. The soaring demand for AI and data science gives India the opportunity to lead the comity of nations in AI research and development. Globally, the adoption of AI is expected to create 133 million new jobs (World Economic Forum). These jobs will range from AI specialists and machine learning engineers to data analysts and software developers who can design and implement AI solutions. Yet, technical roles aren't the only ones in demand. Project managers and business analysts who can understand AI's potential and develop strategies for implementing it are also in high demand.

A key driver of India’s AI revolution is an enabling policy landscape. The announcement by the Government in the latest Budget to set up three Centres of Excellence to develop AI for India and make AI work for India is a progressive step to build core capabilities in AI and design thinking needed to drive actionable impact. The Government of India has also announced to roll out the INDIAai Programme. This will lead to the proliferation of AI use cases through the IndiaAI stack. The central IT Ministry has Bhashini, the natural language AI platform. The team manning this platform aims to build a National Public Digital Platform for languages to develop services and products for citizens by leveraging the power of AI and other emerging technologies.

India's vast and diverse population gives it an edge in AI innovation. With over 1.3 billion people, India is home to a large amount of data, which is a critical component of AI development. The data can be used to train algorithms and build models that are more accurate and effective. Tech Industry in India was pegged at $245 billion in FY 2023, is estimated to reach $500 billion by 2030 (Nasscom). The industry continues to be the net employer with over a 5.4-million workforce, creating 290,000 new jobs in FY2023.

With India continuing to innovate and lead in this field, we'll see a slew of exciting new technologies and solutions emerge from this country. AI-powered innovation in India is virtually limitless, from personalized healthcare to smart agriculture, from virtual assistants to self-driving cars. India is on the verge of being a global leader in the AI revolution thanks to its thriving tech industry, talented workforce, and diverse population. India will drive the next wave of AI-powered progress as this field continues to grow and evolve, changing the future in exciting and unexpected ways.

https://www.thehindu.com/business/Industry/indias-ai-penetration-factor-at-309-highest-among-all-g20-oecd-countries-nasscom/article66522647.ece https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/tech-bytes/india-top-country-in-ai-skill-penetration-globally-nasscom/articleshow/98004891.cms?from=mdr