SUMMARY
AI can help expand in a cost-effective and outcome-oriented manner, said Goyal
Various government departments are working to see how AI can be used to push economic growth
More than 1,000 startups work in machine learning and artificial intelligence
Startups, who have been early adopters of artificial intelligence, have enjoyed great profit margins. The Indian government has also been betting high on technology to push economic growth. Reiterating the same, Union minister for commerce and industry Piyush Goyal on Monday (January 6), said, “Use of AI in different forms can help achieve the target of making India a $5 Tn economy in the coming years.”
The minister said various departments are working to see how AI, space technology and other modern tools can be used to push the economic growth of the country.
In 2017, an AI task force was created to drive India’s economic transformation. The Taskforce has recommended an Inter-Ministerial National Artificial Intelligence Mission to act as a nodal agency for coordinating AI activities in India.
“We in the government believe that AI can, in different forms, help us achieve the $5 Tn benchmark, which we have set for over (next) five years,” Goyal was quoted as saying at a function by Businessworld.
The minister added that AI can also help expand in a more cost-effective and outcome-oriented manner.
In July 2015, the government announced the launch of a centre of excellence for IoT as part of the Digital India Initiative. This jump-started the IoT ecosystem to help the country attain a leadership role in the convergent area of hardware and software. The main objective of the center is to create innovative applications and domain capability by harnessing the innovative nature of the startup community and leveraging the experience of corporate players.
“The team is focusing to see how they could benefit from AI as the potential is humongous. AI can help in every sector to do our jobs better. It can help improve ease of living and ease of doing business,” he added.
Indian Startups And AI
Emphasising on the growth of the Indian startup ecosystem, NITI Aayog chief Amitabh Kant recently said that across different sectors, India has gone digital.
“As a result, India has become hugely data-rich, even before it has become rich. This data richness of India has led to over 1,000 startups working in learning, artificial intelligence and they are doing the kind of disruption that the world has never seen before. Many of them are doing path-breaking work,” Kant said.
By 2020, around 30% of businesses will reportedly use AI in at least one of their sales processes. Businesses that are not automating their sales processes will be left behind since AI can better equip salespeople to follow up on leads. It also greatly improves the customer experience.
Meanwhile, the Chief Justice of India, SA Bobde, also recently said that the Supreme Court has proposed to introduce a system of AI which would help in better administration of justice delivery and constitution.
The CJI also made it clear that the automation would not replace humans. He said that the judiciary would continue to rely on the knowledge and wisdom of judges and the deployment of an AI integration would help reduce the number of pending cases and improve the efficiency of the judicial system.
“We propose to introduce, if possible, a system of artificial intelligence. There are many things which we need to look at before we introduce ourselves. We do not want to give the impression that this is ever going to substitute the judges,” said the CJI at the Constitution Day function organised by the Supreme Court Bar Association.
