Opinion

India’s AI Strategy Should Be to Create a Data Infrastructure

Vasant Dhar
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Indeed there could be advantages in letting others do the heavy lifting in creating the algorithms, and focus on vision and data instead.
By Vasant Dhar
Hardly a week passes without yet another story about the Artificial Intelligence race between China and the US. China has allocated massive funding to AI to enable new capabilities in transportation, surveillance and weapons. China is “all in” on AI, with Chinese private funding in AI in the last decade growing seven-fold faster than US funding.

India has largely ignored AI. No Indian university or think-tank figures as a serious AI research entity measured by citations or other measures of innovation such as victories in prestigious AI contests, where algorithms compete on standard problems. China now increasingly features such winners and boasts two AI institutions in the top 10 globally who work closely with the government. In contrast, India lags behind in terms of vision, infrastructure and the funding required to become a major player in AI innovation. Is it too late for India to play catchup in AI?

Interestingly, the answer is that it isn’t too late. Indeed there could be advantages in letting others do the heavy lifting in creating the algorithms, and focus on vision and data instead. Why?

Read the full article as published by HindustanTimes.  

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Vasant Dhar is a Professor of Information Systems.