Amitabh Kant, CEO of Niti Aayog, said that India is organising an AI conference, RAISE 2020, to be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday evening. National e-Governance Division (NeGD) and MyGov CEO Abhishek Singh said that the Meity will soon approach the Cabinet for a policy to launch AI-based programmes.
NEW DELHI: The IT Ministry is looking to use artificial intelligence to address issues such as the language barrier that Indians face in communication and expects Cabinet approval to launch next generation technology programmes in a month’s time, senior government officials said Saturday. Amitabh Kant, CEO of Niti Aayog, said that India is organising an AI conference, RAISE 2020, to be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday evening.
National e-Governance Division (NeGD) and Chief Executive Officer of MyGov, Abhishek Singh, said that Meity will soon be approaching the Cabinet for policy to launch AI-based programmes.
Kant said that the details of the proposal can not be discussed at this time, but he expects the policy to be in place within 60 days.
“It will not be appropriate to talk at length at this stage because it is going to the Cabinet but hopefully we should have approval within a month or so. We have already got approval of the expenditure finance committee and ministry of information technology (Meity) will drive the proposal. Give us another 60 days,” Kant said.
Meity Secretary Ajay Sawhney said that the AI will provide India with a tremendous opportunity if the country’s talent pool is used to solve different problems by the use of technology.
He said that there are 22 regional languages and people who know only a particular language are unable to communicate with others.
“This is one of the many other issues that artificial intelligence can solve,” Sawhney said. Singh said that AI will be used for natural language processing, which could end the communication issue by putting an end to the language barrier.
AI has the ability to increase India’s annual growth rate by 1.3 percentage points and add USD 957 billion to India’s economy by 2035, according to Accenture ‘s studies.
According to official data, more than 38,700 academia, research and government stakeholders from 125 countries have registered to participate in RAISE 2020.
“We look at artificial intelligence not from the viewpoint of driverless cars but from solving problems of people and how we can socially empower them through AI. We will make AI a moment in India,” Kant said.
The National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence (NSAI) highlighted the potential of Artificial Intelligence ( AI) to improve India’s annual growth rate by 1.3 percentage points by 2035 and identified priority sectors for the deployment of AI with government support.
