The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) may create a special scheme to support semiconductor chips focused on Artificial Intelligence (AI), along with platforms for datasets and computing as part of its multi-year roadmap for a programme for the technology.

The working groups of academics and industry stakeholders appointed by the central government for the India AI programme have submitted their recommendations, suggesting the development of substantial GPU capacity for start-ups. MeitY may carve out a new development incentive for AI chips from the India Semiconductor Mission (ISM), said Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology.

Another recommendation is to build an Indian datasets platform – likely to be one of the largest and most diverse collections of anonymised data required for training AI models. The ministry was expected to publish the recommendations from the working groups on its website on Friday; however, the report had not been released at the time of going to press.

“This is a deep multi-year roadmap, firstly for making India’s AI work as a connecting enabler for a $1 trillion digital economy growth. Secondly, to deploy AI in real-life use cases that span from agriculture, healthcare, education, fintech, security, and governance,” Chandrasekhar said.

The Ministry also invited industry suggestions on its draft National Strategy on Robotics released last month. The robotic strategy identifies four sectors to prioritise robotics automation in India, namely: manufacturing, agriculture, healthcare, and national security. MeitY has proposed a two-tier institutional framework to facilitate the implementation of the National Strategy on Robotics, which will be undertaken as the ‘National Robotics Mission’, according to the draft.

As part of the robotic strategy, the ministry aims to create a Robotics Innovation Unit (RIU) – for standards, sandboxing of robotic solutions – and is seeking input from the industry on its contours. It will be an independent agency institutionalised under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, as part of India AI, to lead the implementation of the National Strategy on Robotics.

The unit may engage with the industry, MSMEs, start-ups, individual innovators, R&D institutes, academia, and government organisations to create a robotics ecosystem. The government has invited suggestions on the strategy with a deadline of 31 October.

The three Centres of Excellence (CoEs) on AI that were announced during the union budget for FY24 are currently being built by the Ministry of Education with support from MeitY, the minister noted. “There will be 10-20 CoEs (for AI) in the country in the coming years. Some of them will be funded by MeitY, some by private, academic, and enterprise partnerships. But we will create a very flourishing and rapidly improving ecosystem of CoEs,” he added.

The government’s ‘India AI’ is an umbrella programme that harmonises existing AI initiatives, from building language models (Digital India Bhashini) for increasing digital accessibility for citizens to skilling programmes, demystifying AI for school students, to achieve the common goal of ‘making AI in India and making AI work for India’.