According to reports, Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar said the government plans to unveil a draft regulatory framework for Artificial Intelligence by June-July this year.

While addressing the opening session of the two-day Nasscom leadership summit, the minister said, “The government is working on a draft AI regulation framework set for release in June or July this year. The intention is to harness AI for economic growth and address potential risks and harms.”

Moreover, he said, the government is also determined to build AI-skilled individuals. “We will fully exploit the potential of AI but set up the guardrails as well to prevent misuse. Today, we are seen by the world at the forefront of harnessing AI technology. We are all for deploying AI across use cases, from farm to factories, and we want to use AI for economic growth, healthcare, agriculture, and farmer productivity,” the minister said.

The government has already planned to release an AI regulation framework for a long time. “Given the ubiquitous and boundary-agnostic nature of the Internet and AI, it is important that there is a global governance framework that deals with the safety and trust of AI,” he said. Earlier, Chandrasekhar had said the government’s approach to regulating AI would involve establishing principles and a comprehensive list of harms and criminalities related to the technology.

Instead of regulating AI at specific points in its development, he had said the government favoured setting clear guidelines for platforms focusing on addressing issues like bias and misuse during model training. With the rise of internet usage, he said the already 900 million substantial internet population will touch 1.2 billion soon.