Global South Looking At India For AI Policies, Says IT Minister Vaishnaw

Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has said that new risks emerging from artificial intelligence need to be properly integrated with the country's social and democratic institutes. While, steps to create legally binding frameworks for use of AI have been initiated in Japan, US and the European Union, the Global South is also looking to India for policy, he said. 

The Union Minister of Information and Broadcasting, and Electronics and Information Technology inaugurated the Global IndiaAI Summit 2024 on Wednesday in New Delhi.

The two-day event will bring together international delegates, AI experts and policymakers to discuss advancements in the much-talked about technology. The focus of the conference will be on key pillars of the AI ecosystem, including compute capacity, foundational models, datasets, application development, future skills, startup financing, and safe and trusted AI.

During the summit, Vaishnaw also spoke about AI's potential across content and the industrial world. The world is wary of the threat of misinformation, fake news and risks from AI. 

The government will approach AI in the same way as digital public infrastructure. It will invest in a public platform where compute power, datasets, common set of protocol, technical, legal framework is available, the minister said. "We will also procure 10,000 or more graphics processing units."

AI innovation centres, AI skilling and procuring high quality datasets for researchers and startups will be in focus. The government will also be accelerating finance for deep tech and AI, Vaishnaw said.

"Venture capital will only come when returns are visible, so we will support when startups are vulnerable," he said. 

The $1.2-billion IndiaAI mission is set to be launched at the event, according to Abhishek Singh, additional secretary of Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. The mission is to focus on startups, AI skilling, datasets platform, compute and foundational model.

Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry, Jitin Prasad; Vice President of Engineering at OpenAI, Srinivas Narayanan; and ambassador from Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Amélie de Montchalin, are some of the notable speakers at the summit. 

Narayanan highlighted OpenAI's commitment to IndiaAI's application development initiative, and AI use cases in the country, such as PhysicsWallah, FarmerChat, Bhashini, and 10BedICU. PhysicsWallah offers affordable education for students and JEE and NEET exams, while FarmerChat uses AI to help farmers.

India is well poised to use AI in the process of development. It is an important factor in driving the Viksit Bharat 2047 mission, said S Krishnan, secretary of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.