Context: The Cabinet approved the India AI Mission with an outlay of Rs 10,372 crore for five years to encourage AI development in the country.

About the Mission

• The approved corpus will be used to build a high-end scalable AI ecosystem in public-private partnership mode.

• The mission will be implemented through the IndiaAI Independent Business Division (IBD) under Digital India Corporation (DIC).

• Supercomputing capacity, comprising over 10,000 GPUs (graphics processing unit), will be made available to various stakeholders for creating an AI ecosystem.

• An India AI Innovation Centre (IAIC) will be set up under the mission. The IAIC will be a leading academic institution, ensuring streamlined implementation and retention of top research talent.

• A National Data Management Office will be set up under the mission that will coordinate with various government departments and ministries to improve the quality of data and make them available for AI development and deployment.

It has the following components

• IndiaAI Compute Capacity: The IndiaAI compute pillar will build a high-end scalable AI computing ecosystem to cater to the increasing demands from India’s rapidly expanding AI start-ups and research ecosystem.

• The ecosystem will comprise AI compute infrastructure of 10,000 or more Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), built through public-private partnership. It will act as a one-stop solution for resources critical for AI innovation.

• IndiaAI Innovation Centre: The IndiaAI Innovation Centre will undertake the development and deployment of indigenous Large Multimodal Models (LMMs) and domain-specific foundational models in critical sectors. 

• IndiaAI Datasets Platform: It will streamline access to quality non-personal datasets for AI Innovation. A unified data platform will be developed to provide a one-stop solution for seamless access to non-personal datasets to Indian Startups and Researchers.

• IndiaAI Application Development Initiative: It will promote the AI applications in critical sectors for the problem statements sourced from Central Ministries, State Departments, and other institutions. The initiative will focus on developing/scaling/promoting adoption of impactful AI solutions with potential for catalyzing large scale socio-economic transformation.

• IndiaAI FutureSkills: It is conceptualized to mitigate barriers to entry into AI programs and will increase AI courses in undergraduate, masters-level, and Ph.D. programs. Further, Data and AI Labs will be set-up in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities across India to impart foundational level courses.

• IndiaAI Startup Financing: This pillar is conceptualized to support and accelerate deep-tech AI startups and provide them streamlined access to funding to enable futuristic AI Projects.

• The approved IndiaAI Mission will propel innovation and build domestic capacities to ensure the tech sovereignty of India.