Union Minister of State for Electronics and IT, Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Rajeev Chandrasekhar has announced that artificial intelligence (AI) laboratories will be established in 10 colleges in Thiruvananthapuram under the IndiaAI Mission unveiled recently.
Mr. Chandrasekhar, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) candidate for the upcoming General elections in Thiruvananthapuram constituency, told media persons here on Monday that the laboratories will be set up in collaboration with a global technology major.
He clarified the decision could not be dubbed as a poll promise and does not intend to make the election a condition to fulfil the announcement.
The Centre had received applications from 17 colleges, including those in both the government and private sectors, in the State capital. The first batch of 10 colleges will be declared in the next few days. More AI labs will be sanctioned for institutions in other parts of the state at a later stage, he added.
The laboratories will provide skilling opportunities, mentorship and support to startups and students.
Mr. Chandrasekhar also reiterated that he considered it his responsibility to help Thiruvananthapuram become a leader in startups and technology, including in the domain of AI. The city currently stood in the 18th position among startup ecosystems in the country.
The ₹10,372-crore IndiaAI Mission will enable the country to develop its own Indian foundational models. “The world is talking about ChatGPT and OpenAI. Based on our own languages and India data sets, we expect that as a consequence of the IndiaAI Mission, we will have sovereign AI models that are designed in India,” he said.
It also envisages a massive scale-up of the country AI computing ecosystem to cater to startups and research ecosystem.
Terming AI the next big area of focus for the digital economy, Mr. Chandrasekhar said the Central government hopes to harness the power of AI in various sectors including health, medicine discovery, agriculture, governance and language translation.
