India AI Mission

India AI Mission

GS-3: Science and Technology

(UPSC/State PSC)

Important for Prelims:

India AI Mission, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), National e-Governance Division (NeGD) and National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM), NITI Aayog, Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI), AIRAWAT.

Important for Main Exam:

About India AI Mission, Importance of India AI Mission.

11/03/2024

Why in news:

Recently, the Union Cabinet has approved the India AI Mission for the next five years.

  • With a budget outlay of Rs 10,371.92 crore, the mission is an important step towards strengthening India's AI ecosystem.

About India AI Mission:

  • It is a joint initiative of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), National e-Governance Division (NeGD) and National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM).
  • On 28 May 2020, India AI was launched as a knowledge portal, research organization and ecosystem-building initiative.
  • The mission will be implemented by 'IndiaAI' Independent Business Division (IBD) under Digital India Corporation (DIC).
  • India AI compute capacity: The ecosystem will include AI compute infrastructure of 10,000 or more graphics processing units (GPUs) built through public-private partnerships.
  • Additionally, an AI marketplace will be designed to offer AI as a service and pre-trained models to AI innovators.

Objective of this mission:

  • To ensure a structured implementation of the India AI Mission through a public-private partnership model with the aim of nurturing India's AI innovation ecosystem.
  • Establish a comprehensive ecosystem that catalyzes AI innovation through strategic programs and partnerships across the public and private sectors.
  • To unify and promote collaboration among various entities in India's AI ecosystem.

Significance of India AI Mission:

  • It will act as a one-stop solution for critical resources for AI innovation.
  • India AI Innovation Centre: It will undertake development and deployment of indigenous large multimodal models (LMM) and domain-specific fundamental models in critical areas.
  • India AI Dataset Platform: The platform will streamline access to quality non-personal datasets for AI innovation.
  • The mission will promote innovation and build domestic capabilities to ensure India's technological sovereignty.
  • It will also create highly skilled employment opportunities to harness the country's demographic dividend.
  • It will promote responsible, inclusive growth of India's AI ecosystem.
  • The IndiaAI Mission will help India show the world how this transformative technology can be used for social good and enhance its global competitiveness.
  • An integrated data platform will be developed to provide Indian startups and researchers a one-stop solution for seamless access to non-personal datasets.
  • This initiative will focus on adopting/developing/scaling/promoting impactful AI solutions that have the potential to catalyze socio-economic transformation on a large scale.
  • This mission is conceptualized to reduce the barriers to entry into AI programs and will increase AI courses at undergraduate, postgraduate level and PhD.
  • India AI Startup Financing: It is conceptualized to support and accelerate deep-tech AI startups and provide them streamlined access to funding to enable future AI projects.
  • Secure and Trustworthy AI: The Secure and Trustworthy AI pillar will enable the implementation of responsible AI projects including the development of indigenous tools and frameworks, self-assessment checklists for innovators and other guidelines and governance frameworks.

India's initiative to develop India AI Mission:

Contribution of NITI Aayog:

  • NITI Aayog has tabled the discussion on 'National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence' which focuses on setting up the International Conference on Devices with Artificial Intelligence (ICTAI) in the country through private sector collaboration.
  • NITI Aayog will set up India's first AI-specific cloud computing infrastructure called AIRAWAT.
  • There is a cloud computing platform called Artificial Intelligence Research, Analytics and Knowledge Assimilation (AIRAWAT).

Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI):

  • In the year 2020, India has joined 15 other countries for GPAI to build and utilize emerging technologies.
  • In January 2024, the GPAI Summit held in New Delhi was chaired by India.
  • GPAI is an alliance of 28 countries; The European Union has adopted the 'New Delhi Declaration' of the GPAI.

Source: Indian Express

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Mains Question:

Discuss India AI Mission and its importance.