India Should Evolve Beyond Application-Based Layer, Offer End-To-End AI Capabilities: Kant

India must aspire beyond merely serving as an application-based layer for global needs and strive to offer comprehensive, end-to-end AI capabilities, G20 Sherpa and former NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant said.

He added that core AI research and development is the most critical area for India to become a global champion. 

Addressing the Global IndiaAI Summit digitally, Kant said, “India generates 20% of the global data yet boasts only 2% of the world’s servers. Besides, our computing infrastructure represents less than 2% of the global capacity, a critical bottleneck in global advancement.” 

He further said that the government is looking to enhance computing capacity by procuring over 10,000 graphic processing units in the next 18 months.

“India ranks second globally in the number of GitHub AI projects, accounting for 19% of worldwide AI initiatives. This highlights our active and vibrant participation in AI development on the international stage,” Kant added.

Highlighting the benefits of integration of AI in Indian companies, he said that AI could drive innovation and improve efficiencies across various sectors. However, he advised that instead of adopting a generalised approach, companies should focus on customised AI solutions tailored to the specific needs of each industry.

Additionally, Kant underlined that out of the INR 10,000 Cr allocated under the India AI Innovation mission for supporting AI-related startups, over 2,000 Cr is earmarked for deeptech startups.

It is pertinent to note that the Union Cabinet on March 7 approved the IndiaAI Mission with an allocation of INR 10,372 Cr for the next five years, aimed at fostering innovation in the homegrown AI ecosystem and implementing the mission’s vision via a public-private partnership (PPP) model. 

This comes at a time when India is bolstering its position in the deeptech funding front. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the interim budget also announced a corpus of INR 1 Lakh Cr to provide 50-year interest-free loans or interest for research and development in the sunrise sectors. Notably, these startups are highly capital-intensive and require long gestation periods. 

Moreover, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry is reportedly planning to roll out the deeptech startup policy to provide long-term funds to companies operating in the sector.

Under this, it has reportedly identified 9 priority areas that include increasing spending on research and development to nurture innovation in the space, facilitating targeted long-term funding, and filling the gaps in the intellectual property regime in the country.

Besides this, the initiative targets shared infrastructure and resource sharing, creating conducive regulations, standards, and certifications, attracting talent pool and initiating capacity building, promoting procurement and adoption, ensuring policy and program interlinkages and sustaining deeptech startups.

As per Inc42 data, India boasts a total of over 400 deeptech startups in 2023 against 100 in 2014. Just in 2023, deeptech startups raised $496 Mn compared to $397 Mn in 2022. The homegrown deeptech startups bagged over $1.5 Bn in funding across 343+ deals between 2014 and 2023.