India is slowly yet steadily taking steps ahead to establish artificial intelligence in several domains. Where, NASSCOM President Debjani Ghosh had mentioned that, in order to make India realize its full AI potential, a coalition of government, industries, and startups are required to come up with the necessary infrastructure and policy support.
This will aid in enabling AI innovation across various sectors thereby mentoring and providing financial backing to the startups.
In addition, according to a report by Accenture, artificial intelligence is anticipated to add on $957 billion or 15% of India’s present GDP value by the year 2035.
The amalgamation of technology, information along with the possibility and ability to create intelligent systems has reached critical mass thereby navigating towards exceptional growth in AI investment.
Talking specifically about the IT industry, doubtlessly it has invariably become a centre of amazing minds and has played a crucial role in India’s growth.
As per the year 2018, the government think-tank, National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog made a point on the development of AI research in the IT domain.
In the year 2017, this development subsequently occurred during the launch of a Task Force on Artificial Intelligence for India’s economic transformation by the Commerce and Industry Department of the Government of India.
Following this, AI got its gradual grip and started to get adopted in every sector of India.
As per the experts’ reviews, the main sectors that need AI as their knight in shining armour are healthcare and agriculture to improvise the living conditions for Indian citizens.
In The Present Year
Means through which AI will transform businesses
- AI-Powered Chips.
- Voice Search.
- AI for Customer Support.
- Data Highways.
- Network Improvements.
The coolest AI designations in India
- Data scientist.
- Data engineers.
- Artificial Intelligence scientist.
- Algorithm engineer.
- Machine Learning Engineer.
- Machine Learning researchers.
The Government Backing
The government is actively looking forward to commencing more and more AI initiatives while offering a pool of funds for relevant startups.
According to an interview given by the CTO of Indian AI startup Gramener, Mayank Kapur mentioned that the government is by far the largest potential customer for data science services in India, for which there have been various public sector initiatives that are boosting the extent of Artificial Intelligence.
Where, the government has instigated a proof of concept pilot in 15 districts across India in order to use artificial intelligence-based real-time advisory, which is founded on satellite imagery, weather data, etc.
This aids in the growth of farm yields where there are low farm production levels.
In addition, there is another long-term project building endeavour to complete a natural language processing platform for Indian languages, which is in operation.
This will assist in application development of several kinds viz. conversational, general and career counselling. This will be made possible through chatbots and assistants, who will be conversing in 22 different Indian languages.
Other initiatives boosting AI growth & expansion
By now, we can clearly witness that India is taking active participation towards improvising the manpower skill sets in the endeavour to stay in the neck to neck competition with the global players.
For this purpose, educational institutions have made needful amendments in their curriculum that includes courses like machine learning, data science, etc. Where in the present times it has picked up a good pace with individuals and professionals seeking to acquire these skills and are up for investing in upgrading their skills via these programmes.
AI’s major Prospects in India
- Digital assistants: presence in various high end and advanced organizations for communicating with the customers and curbing the human resources.
- Decision making in organisations: along with other innovations, AI can aid machines in making faster decisions than a human.
- Solving complex issues: AI powers several inventions, which can help humans in overcoming the majority of complex issues in various sectors.
- Trade and Development agreement: these two can function hand in hand to leverage the power of cutting-edge technology for improving and expansion of trade (for eg: AI and Blockchain).
- Large organisations are providing support: Google, Microsoft, Amazon and such other large organisations are endeavouring towards achieving the government’s requirement of cloud computing and machine learning, etc. Where, private companies are anticipated to rush to grab big contracts thereby adding to funding streams for creating innovative technology, and establishing new AI and data science startups. As the Indian government pushes is gravitating towards digital transformation and in the plan of introducing more AI initiatives.
AI’s major Setbacks in India
- Fewer researchers: In comparison to other countries, India has relatively a small number of researchers in the field of machine learning and research production.
- Scanty local awareness of the latest knowledge in India: this is comparatively higher in other countries.
- Indian businesses reluctance towards AI: with the pool of existing and potential possibilities, Indian businesses are still not readily accepting AI with open arms.
- Insufficiency of qualified personnel: even if we have numerous standard packages in place, India lacks qualified personnel who can implement machine learning to its own challenges and data.
- Lack of AI Strategies: the present AI strategies are very minimal and there is a requirement to develop means for dealing with the complexity of life in India.
End Note
AI will certainly pave a bright future ahead in ways more than just one, where not just the IT sector yet other sectors will also be benefited by the same. By now, we can even see India’s digital footprint experiencing tremendous growth.
Where government and large organisations are trying their level best to leave no stone upturned in building different programs for having better technical infrastructure.
Additionally, various technology-based programmes having relevance with AI are also picking up the pace by instilling skills in both individuals and professionals. So, a few more steps towards seeking resources and a framework can boost its development. That day is not far when the Indian artificial intelligence market will emerge, outshine and take a leap.
