Introduction

Mapping India’s AI potential is a paper published by Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET) in March 2021. The paper gives a basic overview of India’s AI potential along five building blocks of AI development and deployment.

India is one of the fastest growing economies that has a significant stake in the development of AI globally. The country is home to a highly skilled workforce that matches up to a vibrant technology market and a large start-up ecosystem that added 1300 startups in 2019. Realizing the potential, the Indian government, too, is taking all necessary steps to steer the country and position it among the leaders in AI. However, despite the favorable ecosystem, there are significant impediments that the country needs to face to make rapid stride in AI progress. For example, India lacks the infrastructure to support large scale experimental test beds and an enabling data ecosystem that enables access to intelligent data. Though India has the highest average share of AI skills as compared to any other country, it lacks high-quality talent to work on cutting-edge AI algorithms.

Given this background, the report draws inferences from various CSET datasets and primary source data on the five basic pillars that are required to build a favourable AI ecosystem: a) talent, b) research, c) patents, d) AI companies and investments and e) cloud computing.

The paper highlights that though India has a strong talent pipeline, weaknesses in the higher education system is forcing talent to pursue PhDs in foreign countries, especially in the United States. On the research front, while it is true that India is the fourth largest producer of AI-relevant scholarly papers, Indian researchers are less likely to collaborate with foreign authors for extensive research. As far as patents are concerned, even though India ranks in the top 10 AI patent producing countries, the number of Indian-owned AI patents is very small in comparison to its AI research output. India still has a long road ahead to match the likes of China and the United States. The investment in AI companies have witnessed a steady growth between 2015 and 2018, post which it almost tripled its value. An interesting observation is that more than half of the Indian companies applying AI to its product are active in business analytics, medicine, finance and sales, retail and customer relations. On the cloud computing front, the data reveals that though India does not have a domestic manufacturing capacity for AI chips, it is one of the fastest growing cloud markets. In fact, many companies in India rely on public cloud computing from private vendors such as Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure. 

Relevance of the Report

India is uniquely positioned to drive the AI ecosystem globally on account of its massive information technology workforce, a research and academic-based community and a growing technology system. However, to claim the spot, India needs to thoroughly evaluate its potential and scrutinize the progress across the various building blocks of an AI ecosystem. The report successfully delivers this job by giving a clear picture of the progress that India has achieved so far and what still needs to be done. It summarizes its finding in a clear and crisp manner which enhances the reader’s understanding of the advancement made so far. 

Key Takeaways

• Despite having a high talent pool, the weaknesses in the higher education sector in India is limiting its ability to create a highly skilled AI workforce.
• A significant increase in the number of AI patent applications since 2012.
• Indian AI researchers has fewer international collaborations which might have a direct effect on research quality and impact.
• Though investments in the privately held AI companies is comparatively small when compared with China and the United States, the total amount has increased over the years.
• A successful partnership between India and the US will not only bolster international research collaborations but also strengthen investment ties.