IndiaAI Mission, Gates Foundation To Collaborate On AI Innovation Soon: Vaishnaw

At a time when artificial intelligence has taken the world by storm and the technology is seeing a rapid adoption in India as well, the government is looking to further step up its AI-driven initiatives through a new partnership between the IndiaAI Mission and the Gates Foundation.

Both these entities will soon sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to build AI solutions for better crops, stronger healthcare, smarter education and climate resilience. 

“AI solutions for better crops, stronger healthcare, smarter education & climate resilience— MoU soon between India AI Mission & Gates Foundation,” union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw announced on X after a meeting with Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates.

Meanwhile, Gates also expressed his appreciation over discussion on the rapid expansion of India’s Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) and the IndiaAI Mission.

“I look forward to continuing our partnership with the government of India and India’s AI innovators across health, education, climate, and agriculture to improve lives in India and around the world,” he wrote on X.

Gates visited India this week, and met Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Health Minister JP Nadda and Vaishnaw, among other senior officials.

The IndiaAI Mission, approved in March 2024 with a budget of INR 10,372 Cr over five years, is designed to establish a robust AI ecosystem. It aims to provide advanced supercomputing resources, including over 10,000 GPUs, to various stakeholders.

As part of this initiative, the government has introduced several key programs, such as the IndiaAI Compute Portal, which will offer cost-effective AI computing, networking, storage, and cloud services. Additionally, AIKosha, a unified datasets platform, was launched earlier this month.

The IndiaAI Mission has also invited Indian startups, researchers, and entrepreneurs to collaborate on developing foundational AI models trained on indigenous datasets. So far, it has received 187 applications for this initiative. 

According to a blog post on the IndiaAI website, a panel of experts will evaluate the submitted proposals, and shortlisted candidates will be invited for a detailed presentation.

Also, PM Modi co-chaired the AI Action Summit in Paris last month, alongside French President Emmanuel Macron. During the event, Modi announced that India would host the next edition of the summit.