For five years, India will spend Rs 10,372 crore on AI businesses and infrastructure

The world’s most populous nation, India, is staking a claim on the booming field of artificial intelligence by investing Rs 10,372 crore over the course of five years in a variety of initiatives related to the technology.

According to a statement released by the information technology ministry late on Thursday, the money would be used to establish computer infrastructure and assist in financing AI firms.

The Digital India Corporation’s (DIC) IndiaAI Independent Business Division (IBD) will carry out the objective.

PM (Narendra) Modi Ji has made technology accessible to everybody. “He will provide compute power to innovators, startups, students, and educational institutions through the AI mission,” union minister of information technology and communications Ashwini Vaishnaw said in a statement.

Following the Cabinet meeting, the minister briefed media on the availability of supercomputing power, which includes over 10,000 GPUs (graphics processing units), to different stakeholders for the purpose of establishing an AI ecosystem. Because GPU-based servers process data faster than CPU-based servers, there is a greater demand for these types of servers.

The government said that the AI supercomputing infrastructure created under the India AI Mission would be accessible to startups, universities, researchers, and industry.

The investment, according to MoS MEITY Rajeev Chandrasekhar, “will catalyse India’s AI ecosystem and position it as a force shaping the future of AI for India and for the rest of the world.”

Under the mission, an India AI Innovation Centre (IAIC) would be established. Being a preeminent academic organization, the IAIC will guarantee efficient implementation and the retention of outstanding research personnel.

With the Cabinet’s approval of funding, IAIC will be able to lead the way in the creation and implementation of fundamental models, focusing on native Large Multimodal Models (LMMs) and domain-specific models that make the most use of edge and distributed computing.

The investment will strengthen the India AI Startup Financing system, making it easier for aspiring AI firms to get financing and accelerating their transition from product development to market launch.

“The proposal also includes funding provisions for industry-led AI projects aimed at fostering social impact, propelling innovation and entrepreneurship,” according to an official release.

Under the mission, a National Data Management Office will be established to work in tandem with different government ministries and agencies to enhance data quality and make it accessible for AI research and application.

Government-appointed working groups on artificial intelligence have suggested building up a three-tiered computational infrastructure with 24,500 GPUs.

Local IT trade association Nasscom has projected that by 2027, India’s fledgling artificial intelligence business would have a valuation of USD 17 billion. According to US research company Gartner, the worldwide market for AI software might reach USD 297 billion by the same year, however that amount just makes up a small portion of the industry.

Built on the worldwide outsourcing boom that started in the 1990s, India has a sizable software services sector. AI software is both a danger and an opportunity. AI models may pose a threat to engineering graduates employed in typical contact center or coding positions.

China and the US now have the greatest computer infrastructure, which is necessary for the advancement of AI technology.

The US, Europe, Japan, China, South Korea, and Saudi Arabia are home to some of the world’s best supercomputers, according to the Top 500 website, where purchasing power parity is high.

According to the November 2022 Top 500 list, China had 162 supercomputers, the US 127, and India three.

Industry estimates place NVIDIA at the top of the GPU market with an approximate 88 percent market share. However, because of the company’s strong demand worldwide, GPU orders often take 12 to 18 months to arrive.

The AI working groups have advised installing 15 times more capacity than the greatest capacity already built in order to create best-in-class AI computing infrastructure at five sites with 3,000 AI Petaflops of processing power.

Establishing an Inference Farm (2,500 AI PF) and Edge Compute (500 AI PF) systems has been advised by the organizations.

Under the National Supercomputing Mission, the government has already invested Rs 1,218.14 crore over the last eight years to establish 24 PetaFlops of computing capability.

Microsoft gave Open AI a USD 1 billion investment in 2019 and a USD 10 billion (about Rs 82,000 crore) investment in 2023 as part of the competition to build AI capabilities.

In 2022, IBM alone committed USD 6.5 billion, or around Rs 5300 crore, to research, development, and engineering in order to advance in the realms of artificial intelligence, hybrid clouds, and cutting-edge sectors like quantum.

Last year, Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, warned Indian enterprises and entrepreneurs that without substantial financial support, it would be difficult to develop AI products.

The public and business sectors in India have started developing AI applications.

This month, the nation’s leading colleges will collaborate with billionaire tycoon Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries, the biggest firm in India based on market capitalization, to launch a chatbot program akin to ChatGPT.