India Backs Common AI, Data Governance Framework For GPAI Members

Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar has urged the member states of the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI) to devise a common framework regarding artificial intelligence (AI), data governance and internet safety. 

“We all should be concerned about user harm. I would encourage member states to think about evolving a common framework of rules and guidelines about data governance, about safety and trust as much to do with the internet as to do with AI,” said Chandrasekhar. 

Chandrasekhar also noted that user harm, criminality and other issues that threaten trust online were proliferating.

The Minister made the comments while virtually addressing the concluding ceremony of the GPAI Summit held in Japan. At the event, India also assumed the chair of the internal coalition, taking over from France.

Elaborating further, the Minister also called on the GPAI to build common AI technologies that could be deployed in member countries. He also called for developing a common framework on AI-specific skill generation and talent cultivation. 

“We believe that GPAI could collaborate with countries and build common AI technologies and platforms that could be used by all member states and indeed benefit the people and citizens of all the participating countries,” he added. 

Emphasising collaborative research among GPAI members, Chandrasekhar said that there was a need to establish Centres of Excellence across member nations. This, he said, would enable all these countries to work together in building the future of AI.

Founded in 2020, GPAI is an international coalition that supports responsible and human-centric development and the use of AI. A group of 25 member countries including the US, Japan, Mexico, the UK, EU, Australia and Canada

India’s AI Push

With an eye on the burgeoning AI landscape in the country, the Indian government has several products in the pipeline to ease governance and access to services. Part of the larger Digital India initiative, the AI push is part of the government’s efforts to streamline the delivery of services and enhance convenience for the general populace. 

Earlier this year, the centre launched four new digital schemes, namely Digital India Bhashini, Digital India Genesis and ‘Indiastack.global’ to push for AI implementation and digitisation.

While Digital India BHASHINI focuses on building AI-based solutions for Indian languages and creating multilingual datasets, Digital India GENESIS, with a corpus fund of INR 750 Cr, is a deeptech startup platform that aims to scale up 10,000 tech startups over the next five years, largely from Tier-II, III cities. 

The Indiastack platform aims to showcase the government’s flagship products, such as UPI and Cowin platform and to assist other countries looking for similar technology solutions.

AI has also seen widespread adoption among startups and the general public with deployment opportunities in fields such as natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning. 

From digitising documents to building tailored learning experiences for kids, AI has also seen newer usages in recent times. These systems have also been deployed to maximise efficiency and self-optimising machines to automate processes and detect quality defects.

As a result, a new wave of AI startups have emerged in the country in the past few years including names such as Data Sutram, RealBox, REZO.ai, CropIn, among others.

According to a recent report, India topped the world in terms of AI talent concentration, pointing to the burgeoning ecosystem in the country. As per an IDC report, the homegrown AI software market was pegged at $2.76 Bn in 2020 and is projected to surge to $7.8 Bn by 2025.