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Talking about the role that Artificial Intelligence can play in improving human life at the virtual summit RAISE 2020 – Responsible AI for Social Empowerment – Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that technology has a big role to play in sectors like agriculture, creating next-generation urban infrastructure, and making disaster management systems stronger. The Prime Minister also said that “together AI and humans can do wonders for our planet”.

According to the AIMResearch report, as of July-August 2020 the AI market in India stood at USD 6.4 billion. The report indicated that IT services with a market share of 41.1% and technology sector – including software and hardware firms – with 23.3% captured the major chunk of the pie; followed by the BFSI sector with a 9.6% market share.

It may be recalled that in June 2018, NITI Aayog had released a discussion paper on the transformative potential of AI in the country. The paper projected that India could add USD 1 trillion to its economy by integrating AI. Since then, the government has approved Rs 3,660 crore-national mission for cyber-physical system technologies involving extensive use of AI, machine learning, deep learning, big data analytics, quantum computing, quantum communication, quantum encryption, data science, and predictive analytics.

But that is where the initiatives seem to end.

Early in 2018, there was a lot of media patting and noise that between 2013 and 2017 India had risen in terms of AI research and implementation and ranked third globally, after China and the USA. However, there is still a lot of ambiguity among policy and decision makers about applications of AI, and even after more than two years of the NITI Aayog paper, Government of India is yet to make a formal policy announcement or establish an AI strategy that is comparable to Europe, China, or the USA.

Interestingly, Japan has been focusing on a developing an integrated Society 5.0, while Germany has earmarked Euro 3 billion (approx. Rs 2,58,95 crore) for implementing AI strategy during 2019-2025. Germany’s strategy includes the mandate of integrating AI into society in ethical, legal, cultural and institutional terms in the context of a broad societal dialogue and active political measures.

While RISE 2020 can be seen as the reiteration of government’s commitment, there is a lot that India needs to do to become an AI global hub.