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AI & Emerging Technologies Group

AI & Emerging Technologies Group

Promoting the Adoption of Cutting-edge Technologies to create Significant Economic and Societal Impact

About

India is now prepping for cutting-edge technologies including 5G, AI, blockchain, augmented reality & virtual reality, machine learning & deep learning, robots, natural language processing, etc. These will be critical in the government and industry, for planning or decision-making, expediting development or analysing deployment, issue solving or product creation, detecting new trends or drawing out linkages and associations.

The Emerging Technologies Division of MeitY is responsible for fostering and promoting the utilization of cutting-edge technologies in the country. The Emerging Technologies Division is supporting work for policy / strategy papers in the emerging areas like AI, AR/VR, IOT, Blockchain, Robotics, Computer Vision, Drones, etc.

Initiatives by MeitY in Emerging Technologies

  1. Artificial Intelligence Committees Reports Artificial Intelligence (AI) is expected to change the way we work and live. In view of its positive impact on the economy, the technology is being embraced by the countries across the world. Its proliferation is being regarded as part of the fourth industrial revolution. The Government of India has also envisioned to support research and development and adoption of such technologies. In view of the possible impact of AI on the economy and society and to come out with a policy framework on AI, MeitY constituted four committees on AI. Reports given by them are available on the MeitY website (https://meity.gov.in/artificial-intelligence-committees-reports).
  2. Centres of Excellence for Internet of Things (Gandhinagar, Bengaluru, Gurugram & Vizag) Under the Digital India initiatives, MeitY along with NASSCOM and state governments has set up Centres of Excellence on Internet of Things at Bengaluru, Gurugram, Gandhi Nagar and Visakhapatnam. First centre on IOT was established in Bengaluru in Year 2016 along with Govt of Karnataka and NASSCOM. One of the objectives of these centres is to enable India emerge as a innovation hub in IoT through democratization of innovation and realization of prototypes. Centres of Excellence on IoT connect various entities such as startups, enterprises, venture capitalists, government and academia. They enable start-ups in areas of IoT, Big Data, Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality, Artificial Intelligence and Robotics to reach their maximum potential. (https://www.coe-iot.com/)
  3. Centre of Excellence on Virtual & Augmented Reality (VARCoE) at IIT Bhubaneswar: Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality (VR and AR) have massive innovation potential across a wide range of industries and research fields. The research and innovation activities are currently in domains across a range of industries including product and skill development, health and medical sciences, art and architecture, transport, construction, tourism, entertainment, education, and productivity software. With an objective to explore the opportunities in this niche area, Software Technology Parks of India in partnership with MeitY, Government of Odisha, IIT-Bhubaneshwar and a philanthropist has established Centre of Entrepreneurship for Virtual and Augmented Reality (VARCoE) at IIT-Bhubaneswar. (https://www.iitbbs.ac.in/VARCoE/)
  4. Centre of Excellence on Gaming, VFX, Computer Vision & AI at Hyderabad: This CoE has been set up in collaboration with MeitY, STPI, the gaming industry and the Govt of Telangana in Jan 2020 to provide resources such as mentoring, technology support and funding for Gaming, Animation, VFX, Computer Vision and AI start-ups. It offers integrated programs, CVLAB and Game Lab for start-ups to scale up through its incubation facility. The centre has been branded as IMAGE. The IMAGE accelerator program includes premium plug and play co-working space for start-ups and offers access to the ecosystem which comprises IP owners, mentors, seed funding, investors and a platform to support GoToMarket strategy.
  5. Centre of Excellence on Blockchain Technology at Gurugram: The STPI APIARY, a Centre of Entrepreneurship in Blockchain Technology has been setup in collaboration with MeitY, STPI, Govt. of Haryana, Padup Venture Private Limited, IBM, Intel, GBA and FITT in March 2020. This is an initiative to identify and evaluate promising start-ups in the field of Blockchain technology that will be hosted in the STPI Gurugram incubation facility. A Centre of Entrepreneurship (CoE) is a domain-specific specialized incubation facility for start-ups in the area of emerging technologies where the highest-standards and best-practices in terms of infrastructure, technology, leadership, mentoring, training, research & development, funding, networking for the given focus area are made available. (https://apiary.stpi.in/)
  6. Design, Development, and Deployment of National AI Portal (INDIAai) The National AI Portal of India (INDIAai) is a joint venture by MeitY, NeGD and NASSCOM that has been set up to prepare the nation for an AI future. The portal has plethora of research reports, datasets, case studies, educational institutes, courses, and articles about the ever-growing field of Artificial Intelligence. (https://indiaai.gov.in)
  7. POC for AI Research Analytics and Knowledge Dissemination Platform (AIRAWAT) The Govt. has initiated a project AIRAWAT (AI Research, Analytics and Knowledge Dissemination Platform) for providing a common compute platform for AI research and knowledge assimilation. This AI computing infrastructure will be used by all Technology Innovation Hubs, research labs, scientific community, industry, start-ups and institutions under the National Knowledge Network. The PoC for AIRAWAT will be developed with 200 petaflops Mix Precision AI Machine which will be scalable to a peak compute of 790 AI petaflops.
  8. Formation of Inter-Ministerial Committee for Development of Robotics Ecosystem in the country MeitY has constituted an inter-ministerial committee with secretaries from DoT, DSIR, DST, DPIIT and NITI Aayog as members and secretary, MeitY as the convener. The committee shall be studying the best practices on role of government in supporting their domestic robotics industry & suggest way forward to foster end-to-end ecosystem centred on robotics including research, design, manufacturing, prototyping and utilization in manufacturing.
  9. Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence The Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI) is an international and multi-stakeholder initiative to guide the responsible development and use of AI, grounded in human rights, inclusion, diversity, innovation, and economic growth. India is a founding member of GPAI, having joined the multi-stakeholder initiative on June 15, 2020. Since then, India has significantly contributed to the GPAI goals and objectives and is working on various domestic initiatives for the responsible development, deployment, and adoption of AI. As one of the largest Global South economies leading the AI race, India nominated itself for the position of incoming council chair of GPAI. India received more than two-thirds of first-preference votes and was therefore elected as the Incoming Council Chair in November 2022. India will serve as the Incoming Chair in 2023, then subsequently Lead Chair in 2024, and Outgoing Chair in 2025. (https://gpai.ai/)
  10. IndiaAI Report:
    The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) envisions the India AI programme as a mission-centric approach for leveraging transformative technologies to boost inclusion, innovation, and adoption for social impact. Pillars of India AI include AI in Governance, AI IP & Innovation, AI Compute & Systems, Data for AI, Skilling in AI, and AI Ethics & Governance. As part of building ‘AI in India and AI for India’, MeitY has formed seven expert groups to collaboratively brainstorm on the vision, objectives, outcomes, and design for each of India's AI pillars.

    The report comprehensively presents the objectives of the pillars of IndiaAI and recommends the next action items involved in harnessing the potential of AI for social development and achieving the goal of ‘AI for ALL’.

    (https://www.meity.gov.in/content/indiaai-2023-expert-group-report-%E2%80...).

  11. IndiaAI Mission:

    The Government of India launched the IndiaAI Mission, a comprehensive national-level program to democratize and catalyze the AI innovation ecosystem in the country and ensure the global competitiveness of India’s AI startups and researchers.

    The Mission aims to establish a robust AI ecosystem through strategic programs and partnerships across the public and private sectors. By democratizing computing access, improving data quality, developing indigenous AI capabilities, attracting top AI talent, enabling industry collaboration, providing startup risk capital, ensuring socially impactful AI projects and bolstering ethical AI, it will drive responsible, inclusive growth of India's AI ecosystem. The Mission will be implemented by ‘IndiaAI’ Independent Business Division (IBD) under Digital India Corporation (DIC) and has the following components: IndiaAI Compute Capacity, IndiaAI Innovation Centre, IndiaAI Datasets Platform, IndiaAI Application Development Initiative, IndiaAI FutureSkills, IndiaAI Startup Financing, and Safe & Trusted AI.

    This Mission will propel innovation and build domestic capacities to ensure the tech sovereignty of India. It will also create highly skilled employment opportunities to harness the demographic dividend of the country and help India demonstrate to the world how this transformative technology can be used for social good and enhance its global competitiveness.

For more information please contact:

Smt. Kavita Bhatia
Group Coordinator (AI & Emerging Technologies, Bhashini)/ Sci 'G'
Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology,
Electronics Niketan, 6, C.G.O. Complex
New Delhi-110 003
Phone : 91-011-24364729(Direct)
24301411
E-mail : kbhatia[at]gov[dot]in
kbhatia[at]meity[dot]gov[dot]in