Indian government initiated two new programmes to promote Artificial Intelligence in the country, National Knowledge Portal and ‘Responsible AI for Youth’. National Knowledge portal will serve as a Knowledge hub for the professionals and researchers who are engaged in AI. ‘Responsible AI for youth’ aims in making the students to acquire AI-related skills, mindset and to make them prepared to face the challenges in future.
National Knowledge portal was launched by Union Minister for Electronics and IT, Law and Justice and Communications Ravi Sankar Prasad and the portal is www.ai.gov.in. The portal was developed by the Ministry of Electronics and IT and IT Industry. National e-governance Division of Ministry of Electronics and IT and NASSCOM will jointly run the portal.
The portal will serve as a platform for AI-related activities and developments in India. It will help in the sharing of resources and investments in AI projects. Portal will contain documents, research reports and case studies and help in learning about new job roles related to Artificial Intelligence.
The aim of the ‘Responsible AI for Youth’ programme is to provide the students of the country a platform to empower them with AI-related skills and mindset. The programme is supported by the Department of School Education and Literacy (DoSE&L) and Ministry of Human Resource Development. With the programme, the government aims to make students compete with the challenges in future because AI will dominate the labour market in the coming years.
It should be noted that the Government launched the portal and the programme during the pandemic because Post COVID-19 will see numerous changes in society. Within two or three years, 5G technology will introduce in the world telecom market, provide better connectivity and accessibility to the Internet. This paves the way for future technologies like AI, Blockchain, Augmented reality etc.
Countries like China, United States, South Korea and Japan are way ahead of India in AI developments. Reports suggest that Chinese investment in AI will exceed $70 billion USD by 2020, greatly outspending the world superpower United States. In order to compete with the US, China and other World nations in AI developments Indian government must develop strategic planning and should collaborate with private sector companies.
