Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that India will launch an artificial intelligence (AI) program to increase its computing power capability in order to assist small businesses and startups.

 

“The aim of this mission will be to establish sufficient AI compute power in the country. This will help India’s innovators and startups get better facilities. Under this mission, AI applications in agriculture, healthcare and education-related sectors will be promoted,” Modi said at the inaugural session of the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI) Summit 2023.

 

AI, as a technology, needs to be more inclusive so that the benefits are reaped by all users, Modi said, adding that “the more inclusive, the development journey of AI, the more inclusive will be the results”.

 

“The direction of AI development will totally depend on human and democratic values. It is up to us to keep a place for emotions along with efficiency, ethics along with effectiveness,” he said.

 

Speaking at the event, union minister for electronics and information technology Ashwini Vaishnaw said that wide-ranging disruptive technologies such as AI raised the fundamental question of how societies should deal with them, as per economic times.

 

“India believes in harnessing the potential of AI for inclusive growth. This vision translates into AI use in sectors such as serving citizens through native language, making healthcare accessible and improving yield through precision agriculture techniques,” Vaishnaw said.

 

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, minister of state for electronics and information technology, also spoke at the event, saying that while AI research has been going on for a long time, it had been launched into a different orbit in the previous 18 months.