Lok Sabha Question No. 3997 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2020-03-18
Subject: Artificial Intelligence
Ministry: ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Asked by: Supriya Sadanand Sule, Amol Ramsing Kolhe, Subhash Ramrao Bhamre, Shriniwas Dadasaheb Patil, DNV Senthilkumar. S., Kuldeep Rai Sharma, Manickam Tagore B

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION No. 3997

TO BE ANSWERED ON 18.03.2020

## ARTIFICIAL  INTELLIGENCE

3997:   SHRIMATI SUPRIYA SULE:

DR. AMOL RAMSING KOLHE:

DR. SUBHASH RAMRAO BHAMRE:

SHRI SHRINIWAS PATIL:

DR. DNV SENTHILKUMAR S.:

SHRI KULDEEP RAI SHARMA:

SHRI MANICKAM TAGORE B.:

Will the Minister of Electronics and Information Technology be pleased to state:

- (a) whether the Government has organised an Artificial Intelligence (AI) focused summit on Social Empowerment in New Delhi recently and if so, the details, the aims, the objectives and the outcomes thereof;
- (b) the number of participants in the said summit;
- (c) the details of the issues discussed thereon;
- (d) the steps taken by the Government to create awareness among youths about the positive impact  of  AI  and  to  make  the  country  a  destination  for  AI  based  research  and development in the world; and
- (e) the other steps taken by the Government to promote AI that will eventually transform the lives globally?

## ANSWER

## MINISTER OF STATE FOR ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (SHRI SANJAY DHOTRE)

(a):  No,  Sir.  Government  was  earlier  planning  to  organize  the  summit  on  Artificial Intelligence  (AI)  with  focus  on  social  empowerment    in  New  Delhi  on  11-12  April  2020, however due to sudden outbreak of Novel Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19), the same has not yet been planned. Through this summit Government wanted to outline India's vision for utilizing the power of Artificial Intelligence to responsibly transform the social landscape for a better tomorrow. The following were the objectives of proposed summit:

-  Unveil India's vision for AI
-  Launch Action Roadmap
-  Showcase India's Tech talent
-  Create national awareness
- (a) and (c): In view of (a) above, the question does not arise.

(d): The following steps were taken by government to create awareness among youths about the positive impact of AI:

-  Government has supported 38 training programmes in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and related  technologies  and  33  workshops.  For  building  AI  awareness  at  school  level especially in rural and remote areas, school awareness programmes were initiated in various districts across the country.
-  Government initiated Visvesvaraya PhD Scheme for Electronics & IT in 2014 with the  objective  of  enhancing  the  number  of  PhDs  in  Electronics  System  Design  and Manufacturing (ESDM) and IT/IT Enabled Services (IT/ITES) sectors with a budget of Rs. 466 crore for 9 years. The scheme encourages PhD Fellows to take up research challenges in areas of Information Technology. Scheme provides fellowship amount to PhD candidates. As on 12 March 2020, a total of 1239 PhD (930 full time + 309 part time)  candidates have been enrolled at various institutes.
-  Government  has  initiated  a  Future  skills  programme  titled  'FutureSkills  PRIME' which  aims  to  create  a  re-skilling/up-skilling  ecosystem  for  B2C  in  emerging  and futuristic technologies including Artificial Intelligence to cover a target of 4.12 Lakh beneficiaries (4 lakh Professionals, 10,000 Government Officials and 2,000 Trainers) over a period of 3 years.

## (e):  The following steps have been taken by government to promote AI

-  Government  of  India  has  launched  a  National  Mission  on  Interdisciplinary  Cyber Physical  Systems  (NM-ICPS)  at  a  total  cost  of  Rs.  3660  Crores  for  a  period  of  5 years.  NM-ICPS  has  plans  to  establish  Technology  Innovation  Hubs  in  Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things (IoT), 3D printing, Quantum Computing etc. The core activities of these hubs include: Technology Development, translational research and commercialization  of  new  technologies,  accelerate  entrepreneurship  and  start-up ecosystem development in these new technologies
-  Under  the  Technology  Incubation  and  Development  of  Entrepreneurs  (TIDE  2.0) Scheme to promote tech entrepreneurship financial and technical support is provided to incubators engaged in supporting ICT startups using emerging technologies such as AI, IOT, Block-chain, Robotics etc. in areas of societal relevance. The Scheme will be implemented through 51 incubators through a three tiered structure with an overarching objective to promote incubation activities at institutes of higher learning and premier R&D organisations.
-  In  order  to  foster  innovation  and  to  promote  start-ups  in  the  domains  of  Emerging Technologies like  Internet  of  Things  (IOT),  Artificial  Intelligence  (AI),  Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality (AR/VR), Data Analytics etc, MeitY has established Centres of  Excellence  (CoE).  These  centres  connect  various  entities  such  as  start-ups, enterprises, venture capitalists, government and academia to work on various problem areas and develop emerging Technologies based solutions.
-  MeitY  through  NIC  (National  Informatics  Centre)  &  NICSI[National  Informatics Centre Services Incorporated (NICSI)]  created Centre of Excellence  for  Data Analytics (CEDA) to support government departments to unlock the hidden potential of the data that they are generating as a part of the governance processes, and use it to improve the overall governance.
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