IIT-Madras’ centre for AI bags $1 mn Google investment

The AI division of IIT Madras is slated to support research projects and develop datasets for AI applications.

US technology giant Google has been announced as the inaugural ‘platinum consortium’ member of the Indian Institute of Technology Madras’ (IIT Madras) newly formed Centre for Responsible Artificial Intelligence (CeRAI), marking its commitment with an initial investment of $1 million.

The announcement came during the Centre’s inaugural workshop and panel discussion held on Monday. The AI division of IIT Madras is slated to support research projects and develop datasets for AI applications.

CeRAI was formally inaugurated on April 27, with the ceremony presided over by Rajeev Chandrasekhar, the Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology.

The Centre has forged collaborations with the industry body Nasscom, Southern Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (SICCI), the policy thinktank Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, and the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA)-affiliated thinktank Research and Information Systems (RIS).

These partnerships aim to promote a responsible use of AI through academic curriculum development, exploring implications of AI, developing a participative AI framework, and mentoring startups to create responsible AI applications. The startup mentorship and incubation organization, The Indus Entrepreneurs (TIE), will also be associated with CeRAI, as stated in a press release.

As part of its AI policy advocacy role, CeRAI will look to “formulate sector-specific guidelines and recommendations for policymakers”, according to a press statement by IIT Madras.

Balaraman Ravindran, head of CeRAI and Robert Bosch Centre for Data Science and AI at IIT Madras, said upon the inauguration, “It is important for AI models and their predictions to be explainable and interpretable when they are to be deployed in various critical sectors, such as healthcare, manufacturing and banking and finance.

They also need to provide performance guarantees appropriate to the applications they are deployed in — which include data integrity, privacy and robustness of decision making.”