AI is a ‘kinetic enabler’ for India’s digital economy: Minister of State Rajeev Chandrasekhar

Innovation around AI will contribute significantly towards the growth of India’s digital economy, said Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, at TechSparks 2023 in Delhi on Wednesday.

Speaking to YourStory Founder and CEO Shradha Sharma, the Minister said, “We think AI is simply the most important invention in our recent times. We see AI as a kinetic enabler, a catalyst/force multiplier, for our digital economy.”

The digital economy contributed to 4.5% of India’s GDP in 2014 and it is 11% today, the Minister remarked, adding that, by 2026, the target is to raise it to 20% of India’s GDP.

“We are developing a framework to allow companies, with consent, to use anonymised personal data. And we’re also creating a framework where Indian startups and the Indian AI research and innovation ecosystem will have preferential access, curated access to this huge data sets programme,” the Minister of State shared.

He noted that, by 2024, India will have one of the world’s biggest collections of very diverse and powerful datasets that will be used as fuel for AI in the future.

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India's AI programme to be kinetic enabler to achieve $1T digital economy: Chandrasekhar

“We see a very important role for India and Indian innovation and Indian startups in how the future of AI, especially in real-life use cases of agriculture, healthcare, governance, language translation ... the models for all those ... will get built,” the minister stated.

January 10, 2024 will see the launch of the first global summit on India AI, he said.

Speaking about generative AI, the Minister said, “We should understand that there’s all of this buzz and noise, but our government’s view is that we will stay laser-focused on very clear outcomes that we want out of AI.”

“We are now interestingly in a situation where the rest of the world is beginning to align its own regulatory approach to tech and AI with what India has been saying for the last two years,” he noted.

“We’re in a very good place today and the next 10 years—The Great Indian Techade—promises to be even more exciting,” he added.