Federal Minister Ashwini Vaishno speaks during a Cabinet briefing at the National Media Centre in New Delhi (File)
New Delhi
Union Electronics and Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said India's Artificial Intelligence (AI) strategy is designed to democratize access to technology and create widespread economic and employment opportunities.
Vaishnaw said the strategy, which is consistent with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision, is based on the rapidly growing technology sector. With annual revenues exceeding US$280 billion and over 6 million employees expected to be employed, India hosts more than 1,800 global capacity centres. The startup ecosystem is also booming, with 89% of new startups in the past year being equipped with AI, he notified Rajya Sabha.
India is currently ranked among the top countries in AI capabilities and is the second largest contributor to GitHub's AI project.
To institutionalize this momentum, the government launched its mission in 2024. One of its key pillars is the development of accessible, high quality datasets through Aikosh, a unified platform that provides over 1,200 Indian-specific datasets and 217 AI models.
These datasets exist from farmer queries to medical imaging, but are sourced from government sectors, academia and startups, with a focus on privacy and local relevance. The sandbox mechanism allows startups and academic researchers to test AI tools in a controlled environment.
Bharat Data Exchange further supports Aikosh by providing structured access to government-owned data, while Digital India Bhashini develops AI-driven solutions in 22 Indian languages, contributing from over 70 institutions under the Japanese language translation mission.
Other initiatives include the national mission on the interdisciplinary Cyber Physical Systems (NM-ICPS), which has established 25 innovation hubs, and the health data repository of the Indian Council of Medical Affairs.
Research programs such as Imprint, Uchhatar Avishkar Yojana and the AI-for-Science initiative of the Anusandhan National Research Foundation also promote AI in science, education and healthcare.
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The Minister said the outcome of these efforts is to develop high quality, fair and biased data sets that can be used for a variety of AI applications, and to contribute to India's growth and development.
