Lok Sabha Question No. 1674 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2021-12-08
Subject: Growth of Artificial Intelligence
Ministry: ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Asked by: Shyam Yadav Singh

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

## LOK SABHA

## UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 1674

TO BE ANSWWERED ON: 08.12.2021

## GROWTH OF ARTIFICIAL  INTELLIGENCE

## 1674.     SHRI SHYAM SINGH YADAV:

Will the Minister of ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY   be pleased to State:

- (a) whether the Government is taking steps to regulate the growth of artificial intelligence in India;
- (b) if so, the details thereof.,
- (c) whether the Government intends to bring a law on artificial intelligence; and
- (d) the  steps  taken  by  the  Government  to  develop  infrastructure,  expertise,  skilling  and research in artificial intelligence?

## ANSWER

MINISTER OF STATE FOR ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (SHRI RAJEEV CHANDRASEKHAR)

- (a) to (c): No, Sir.

(d):   Government of India sees Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a significant and strategic area for the country and technology sector.  It further believes that AI can have kinetic effect from the growth  of  entrepreneurship  &  business  and  is  taking  all  necessary  steps  in  policies  and infrastructure to develop a robust AI sector in the country.

The following are the details:

- i. Government of India also joined the league of leading economies including USA, UK, EU,  Australia,  Canada,  France,  Germany,  Italy,  Japan,  Mexico,  New  Zealand, Republic of Korea, Singapore as a founding member of the Global Partnership on Artificial  Intelligence (GPAI),  which  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.
- ii. Government  has  launched 'National  AI  Portal' (https://indiaai.gov.in/)  which  is  a repository  of  Artificial  Intelligence  (AI)  based  initiatives  in  the  country  for  all stakeholders  at  a  single  place.  As  on  Dec  2,  2021,  there  are  890  national  and
3. international  articles,  577  news,  185  videos,  78  research  reports,  278  startups,  107 Government initiatives listed at National AI Portal.
- iii. To  foster  innovation  through  research  Technology,  government  has  created  several 'Centres  of  Excellence' on  various  emerging  Technologies  including  Artificial Intelligence. The centres connect various entities such as startups, enterprises, venture capitalists,  government  and  academia  to  look  into  problem  statements  and  develop innovative solutions.
- iv. National Programme on Responsible Use of AI for Youth :  With  the  objective  to empower the  youth  to  become  AI  ready  and  help  reduce  the  skill  gap,  government along with Industry partner has started this initiative to promote AI awareness among Government school going children. In Phase I, 50,666 students and 2536 teachers from 2252 schools from 35 States and UTs attended orientation sessions on AI. In Phase II, 100  teams  have  been  short  listed  and  have  undergone  extensive  mentoring  by  AI experts. In Phase-III, Top 20 students have demonstrated their solutions in the national conference.

## v. Infrastructure:

- a. Under the National Supercomputing Mission (NSM), Government of India has built PARAM siddhi with the help of C-DAC, which is the high-performance computingartificial intelligence (HPC-AI) supercomputer.
- b. NIC has setup a Centre of Excellence in AI which is involved in facilitating AI as a Service through on Meghraj cloud with 7 AI PFlopssupercompute facility created at Delhi and 5 AI PFlop in Kolkata.

## vi. Expertise & Skilling:

- a. For skilling and re-skilling, Government has launched ' FutureSkills Prime ' platform which provides an industry driven learning ecosystem.  FutureSkills focuses on 155+ skills  spanning  across  70+  job  roles  on  10  emerging  technologies  namely  Artificial Intelligence,  Blockchain,  Big  Data  Analytics,  Cloud  Computing,  Cyber  Security, Internet of Things, Mobile Tech, Robotic Process Automation, Virtual Reality & 3D Printing.
- b. Government has initiated 'Visvesvaraya PhD Scheme' with an objective to enhance the  number  of  PhDs  in  Electronics  System  Design  &  Manufacturing  (ESDM)  and IT/IT Enabled Services (IT/ITES) sectors including AI in the country. Presently, 908 Full  time  &  308  part-time  PhD  candidates  are  enrolled  under  the  scheme  at  97 academic institutions across the country.
- vii. Research: To promote the research in the area of Emerging Technologies, Department of Science & Technology (DST) has setup 25 Technology Innovation Hubs (TIH) in the area of  Artificial Intelligence,  Data Analytics, Robotics, Drones, IoT, Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality, and Computer vision etc. The TIHs focus on the generation of new  knowledge  through  basic and applied research in the area of emerging

technologies  including  Robotics,  AI,  ML,  Cognitive  Computing,  System  Simulation etc. viii. Data Management:

- Data is the key input for any AI based system. Considering this, Government  has  developed  an  Open  Government  data  Platform  (OGD).  Currently, data of 208 departments (Central & State) is available on OGD platform.
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