Global AI Conclave 2024 Highlights: Bengaluru's ecosystem positions it to become India's AI capital, says MB Patil

Speaking at the CNBC-TV18 & Moneycontrol Global AI Conclave 2024, MB Patil, Minister for Industries and Commerce, stated that if the Indian government implements certain changes, the country could benefit from companies adopting a China+1 strategy.

Speaking at the CNBC-TV18 & Moneycontrol Global AI Conclave 2024, MB Patil, Minister for Industries and Commerce, addressed concerns about the delayed Bengaluru suburban railway project, stating that he has held discussions with the railway minister and assured that the plan is progressing as scheduled.

Speaking at the CNBC-TV18 & Moneycontrol Global AI Conclave 2024, MB Patil, Minister for Industries and Commerce, addressed concerns about Karnataka's freebies impacting infrastructure funding, stating that while there may have been issues in the first year, the state will have sufficient funds for infrastructure going forward.

Speaking at the CNBC-TV18 & Moneycontrol Global AI Conclave 2024, MB Patil, Minister for Industries and Commerce, announced that he will submit the proposal for the second Bengaluru airport this week but refrained from disclosing its location. Regarding Tamil Nadu's consideration of a Hosur airport near Bengaluru's second airport, Patil remarked that every state has the right to establish an airport wherever they choose.

Speaking at the CNBC-TV18 & Moneycontrol Global AI Conclave 2024, Gunjan Krishna IAS, Commissioner for Industrial Development & Director of Industries and Commerce, outlined the key focus areas for industrial policy:

--Industries that offer the highest value addition

--Industries that generate the most employment

--Emerging technologies like electric vehicles (EVs) and hydrogen.

Speaking at the CNBC-TV18 & Moneycontrol Global AI Conclave 2024, MB Patil, Minister for Industries and Commerce, stated that Bengaluru's talent is unmatched, making it a global competitor. He acknowledged that while he didn't want to politicize the issue, semiconductor companies initially engaged with Bengaluru, but later announced plans to establish their base in Gujarat after discussions in Delhi. Patil highlighted that Bengaluru is a melting pot of people from across India, along with a significant expatriate community

Speaking at the CNBC-TV18 & Moneycontrol Global AI Conclave 2024, Gunjan Krishna IAS, Commissioner for Industrial Development & Director of Industries and Commerce, mentioned that approximately 1.2 million people are directly employed in the AI sector, including fields like machine learning, robotics, and quantum computing.

Speaking at the CNBC-TV18 & Moneycontrol Global AI Conclave 2024, MB Patil, Minister for Industries and Commerce, stated that Bengaluru's ecosystem makes it an ideal location to become the AI capital of India. With due respect to other states, the talent in Bengaluru is unparalleled. We compete with the world, he added.

Speaking at the CNBC-TV18 & Moneycontrol Global AI Conclave 2024, Khadim Bhatti of Whatfix shared that a few months ago, they developed a training stack and module for all their engineers, and as a result, all of their products are now AI-powered.

Speaking at the CNBC-TV18 & Moneycontrol Global AI Conclave 2024, Professor Bharadwaj Amrutur explained that when they founded ARTPARK, they were focused on the physical world, believing it was essential for India to stay connected with it. He emphasized their commitment to encouraging and supporting innovation teams that integrate hardware into their work.

Speaking at the CNBC-TV18 & Moneycontrol Global AI Conclave 2024, M.N. Anucheth shared that 70% of traffic violations in Bengaluru are related to not wearing helmets. The city is developing an AI platform that detects 19 types of violations. Additionally, their Astram platform monitors traffic congestion and predicts ways to alleviate it. Anucheth also announced the upcoming launch of a platform called Astram Map, which will help citizens plan their routes for the next 6-24 hours

Speaking at the CNBC-TV18 & Moneycontrol Global AI Conclave 2024, MN Anucheth, Joint Commissioner of Police (Bengaluru Traffic), discussed the development of an AI avatar, aiming to create engaging content that conveys a better message to the public. He mentioned that there are numerous checks and balances in place when using the AI avatar. In the next couple of months, Bengaluru will have 200 AI-based traffic signal junctions. With India having the highest number of private vehicles, Anucheth expressed hope that congestion won't worsen. He also shared plans for a fully AI-driven traffic and congestion management system within a few years.

Speaking at the CNBC-TV18 & Moneycontrol Global AI Conclave 2024, Manish Gupta, Research Director at Google DeepMind, stated that for an AI agent to succeed, it must be capable of multi-modal interactions and understand context.

Speaking at the CNBC-TV18 & Moneycontrol Global AI Conclave 2024, Nand Kumarum, President and CEO of the National e-Governance Division (NeGD) at MeitY, mentioned that they aim to promote the API economy for their data set platform. As part of their AI mission, they are incentivizing the development of use case solutions.

Speaking at the CNBC-TV18 & Moneycontrol Global AI Conclave 2024,TK Kurien, CEO of Premji Invest, shared that the biggest upcoming shift in AI is inferencing, which has yet to happen at scale. He mentioned that they have made significant investments in inferencing, although they haven't disclosed details. Additionally, they are investing in semiconductors, as they believe the current GPU architecture, due to its high power consumption, is not suitable for large-scale use and will require a completely new architecture.

Speaking at the CNBC-TV18 & Moneycontrol Global AI Conclave 2024, TK Kurien, CEO of Premji Invest, stated that India holds a massive opportunity for AI as the global hub for services. While people in India have a strong understanding of their domains, there is a gap in technical knowledge. He believes that bridging this gap could unlock significant opportunities, though there has been more success in the US than in India so far.

Speaking at the CNBC-TV18 & Moneycontrol Global AI Conclave 2024,TK Kurien, CEO of Premji Invest, says AI is the next paradigm but right now network effect is missing currently

Speaking at the CNBC-TV18 & Moneycontrol Global AI Conclave 2024, Rahul Chari, CTO of PhonePe, highlighted that there is currently no metric to measure developer productivity. He explained that while they consider models as one input for creating scores or whitelists, they don’t rely on them for decision-making. Chari noted that the company is undergoing a steep learning curve and emphasized that there are no dedicated AI engineers, only skilled developers. He also remarked that the most intelligent engineers tend to be the laziest, encouraging them to use AI to build better products.

Speaking at the CNBC-TV18 & Moneycontrol Global AI Conclave 2024,TK Kurien, CEO of Premji Invest, emphasized that understanding the future perception of the world is crucial for their strategy.

Speaking at the CNBC-TV18 & Moneycontrol Global AI Conclave 2024, Kailash Nadh, CTO of Zerodha, stated that the company has an AI policy in place to reassure employees, ensuring that technology, including AI, will not lead to layoffs.  We came up with an AI policy that says introduction of AI or automation will not lead to job losses, and they'll always be new roles. We wanted to pacify and assure our folks that piece of technology wouldn't come displace them, he added

Speaking at the CNBC-TV18 & Moneycontrol Global AI Conclave 2024, Kailash Nadh, CTO of Zerodha, shared that they use generative AI for code generation and are exploring LLMs for debugging, though they have not yet identified use cases for deployment. He also mentioned that they use an open-source platform to transcribe customer calls and LLMs to summarize these calls, helping them identify the issues raised by customers.

Speaking at the CNBC-TV18 & Moneycontrol Global AI Conclave 2024, Rahul Chari, CTO of PhonePe, shared that he has been cautious in adopting AI at the company, as they are still learning and monitoring regulations. They do not use AI for code generation but are exploring its use in testing and processes. Chari also mentioned that they are focusing on domain-specific proof of concepts (PoCs) and have not yet fully embraced generative AI for core functions like payments or lending.

Speaking at the CNBC-TV18 & Moneycontrol Global AI Conclave 2024, Mitesh Khapra from AI4Bharat Lab at IIT Madras stated that AI should be accessible to everyone, regardless of language or dialect, and this will be achieved in phases. We are finshing this project in the beginning of next year. We are collecting language data from 500-700 districts of India, he added

Speaking at the CNBC-TV18 & Moneycontrol Global AI Conclave 2024, Ganesh Ramakrishnan, Lead of BharatGen at IIT Bombay, emphasized the importance of India becoming a generator of intellectual property (IP), which should also involve customizing SLMs to ensure technology and data sovereignty. Without this, more data would be controlled by foreign LLMs. He also mentioned that SLMs and generative AI models are enhancing soft intelligence, with the redundancy in these models being addressed by increasing computational power.

Speaking at the CNBC-TV18 & Moneycontrol Global AI Conclave 2024, Vivek Raghavan, co-founder of Sarvam AI, stated that SLMs and LLMs created by others can be used for highly valuable tasks. While this could eventually become a strategic issue, it will be addressed at a later stage.

Speaking at the CNBC-TV18 & Moneycontrol Global AI Conclave 2024, Laina Immanuel Immanuel explains that mental health issues are often overlooked and lack effective solutions, but AI is likely changing this. She added that after surgery, patients may experience sensory or cognitive loss, but with brain mapping, they are going beyond research and helping reduce the functional loss in patients.

Speaking at the CNBC-TV18 & Moneycontrol Global AI Conclave 2024, Niramai founder Geetha Manjunath stated that their AI models for detecting breast cancer have a false positive rate of less than 10%. This affordable solution is especially beneficial for rural areas. The technology uses color codes based on temperature to provide results and has already assisted over 200,000 women. The imaging can be performed by low-skilled technicians without human presence, ensuring privacy.

Speaking at the CNBC-TV18 & Moneycontrol Global AI Conclave 2024, Laina Immanuel, co-founder of BrainSight AI, explains that video analysis of the brain can help detect early signs of dementia, as current tools are lacking. She also noted that AI can empower doctors to enter the surgery room with greater confidence.

Speaking at the CNBC-TV18 & Moneycontrol Global AI Conclave 2024, Geetha Manjunath, founder of Niramai Health Analytix, stated that clinical decisions will be the last to be affected by AI. She emphasized that AI's implementation is clear in certain areas and can help doctors improve efficiency, bridging the gap in healthcare quality between rural and urban regions.

Speaking at the CNBC-TV18 & Moneycontrol Global AI Conclave 2024, Sudarshan Ballal, Chairman of Manipal Hospital, says that one positive outcome of COVID-19 was the rise of telemedicine and remote monitoring. He also highlighted that radiologists will be trained in AI.

Speaking at the CNBC-TV18 & Moneycontrol Global AI Conclave 2024, S Krishnan says, application of AI will be the next industrial revolution. The opportunity that west had with previous industrial revolutions, India has the same opportunity with AI.

S Krsihnan notes that deepfakes are primarily a technological issue, not a regulatory one. However, some adjustments to existing regulations may be necessary, rather than a complete overhaul

Speaking about the IndiaAI mission, the Secretary of the Ministry of Electronics and IT stated that India is still in the innovation phase regarding AI, and this should be kept in mind when considering regulations. Regarding copyright concerns related to large language models (LLMs) and media organizations, these issues should be addressed carefully and thoughtfully.

S. Krishnan highlights that the core focus of the IndiaAI mission is to make computing power accessible to all. IndiaAI is working across seven key pillars, with the first round of AI compute procurement bids opening at the end of the month to secure bulk pricing. The first call for AI application proposals has been completed, and a second call will be launched soon. All proposals will be evaluated by a panel of experts.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar raised concerns on November 22 about the lack of a legal framework for the monetisation of publicly available non-personal data on the internet.

Full report here.

Speaking at the CNBC-TV18 & Moneycontrol Global AI Conclave 2024, Prayank Swaroop of Accel said, "I'm more excited about intersection of robotics and AI. I heard a pitch from a startup that sells plushie toy which has LLM inside. Its like a companion to kids."

Speaking at the CNBC-TV18 & Moneycontrol Global AI Conclave 2024,  Prayank Swaroop of Accel said, " I reject the whole premise of using LLM and using applications. LLMs transform model itself is changing and updating. Folks who are finding what startups will do seven years from now and succeed is what Im most excited about."

"If you take consumer, how many of us have taken a ChatGPT subscription. In India it is not popular to subscribe."

" I find lot more Indian founders building in the US instead of building in India for India."

Speaking at the CNBC-TV18 & Moneycontrol Global AI Conclave 2024,Hemant Taneja of General Catalyst, said," We need to care about what we can build today, but not able to do a year ago. I would encourage founders to focus on single metric but they need to check if they have the vision."

"Right now the world is dominate by two laws. Scaling laws and data laws."

Speaking at the CNBC-TV18 & Moneycontrol Global AI Conclave 2024,Ashish Ipe Koshy, COO, Inception, said, "AI will not take jobs. Need to find the true use cases of AI, and how can it be applied right now"

" We are industry-agnostic, focus is predominantly fine tuning models and building custom AI as a service for any partner."

"COO, Inception: We have an investment AI based platform where all the way from deal sourcing to coming up with conclusion, to validate portfolios."

"I think it should be a hybrid. I believe infrastructure is the key to the next digital economy. If you don't do it now, you will be always dependent on other counties"

Speaking at the CNBC-TV18 & Moneycontrol Global AI Conclave 2024,Ashish Ipe Koshy, COO, Inception, said, "We are industry-agnostic, focus is predominantly fine tuning models and building custom AI as a service for any partner."

Our MOU with government was expansive, focused predominantly on building data centers, supercomputers, AI models. Their mission is to take the solutions that we have there in India, in Saudi Arabia, and deploy it.

G42 focussed on partnering with companies in India and find the right use cases that can create maximum impact

Speaking at the CNBC-TV18 & Moneycontrol Global AI Conclave 2024,Ashish Ipe Koshy, COO, Inception, said, "Collectively, we are known as an intelligence grid, where we equate AI to electricity, where we combine these two all together and provide power."

"We worked on and built the first Arabic large language models called Jais. Our nomenclature is named after the largest mountains worldwide"

Speaking at the CNBC-TV18 & Moneycontrol Global AI Conclave 2024,Hemant Taneja of General Catalyst, said, "Culturally different than the US. Existing businesses are already entrepreneurial."

"A lot of innovation on fintech in India, thanks to Nandan (Nilekani)"

"Markets in the US are buoyant. We’ll see a lot of IPOs in the second half"

Around 10% of the $8 billion we raised will de deployed in India

That number is about to grow

Hemant Taneja of says there are three regulatory challenges:

Global level

Country level

Company level

Speaking at the CNBC-TV18 & Moneycontrol Global AI Conclave 2024,Hemant Taneja of General Catalyst, said,  "Long view, india needs to have its own (LLM)"

"When ChatGPT happened code generation was the most useful case"

"Microsoft was the one which benefited the most"

Speaking at the CNBC-TV18 & Moneycontrol Global AI Conclave 2024,Hemant Taneja of General Catalyst, said, "Extremely bullish on opportunities in India"

"Defence, health care, industrials some key industries that are resilient here"

"Hear delighted customer experience on quick commerce"

Speaking at the CNBC-TV18 & Moneycontrol Global AI Conclave 2024, Rajeev Chandrasekhar said," there are certainly gaps on our jurisprudence framework when it comes to non personal data, scraping the internet, monetising such data and so on"

It is a safe assumption that these gaps would be addressed by amending existing regulation or introducing new ones

Speaking at the CNBC-TV18 & Moneycontrol Global AI Conclave 2024, Rajeev Chandrasekhar said," the endgame for our PM is to integrate AI with digital public infrastructure, to further harness the powers of DPIs"

"Don't want to get into the zero-sum game of LLM and SLM. We need to solve real world problems"

"we must focus on solving real use cases with the help of AI"

"The govt is very laser focused on using AI to improve governance"

Speaking at the CNBC-TV18 & Moneycontrol Global AI Conclave 2024, Santosh Vishwanathan, VP & MD, India Region, Intel said, "Just by following the ways the West is building LLMs might not be the right way and model for us to go with."

"We need a heterogenous architecture to harvest AI. It has to be a combination of CPU, GPUs, Edge, and 'FrugalAI' -- a combination of LLM & SLM."

"Our (India's) resources and frugality will help us scale AI better."

Speaking at the CNBC-TV18 & Moneycontrol Global AI Conclave 2024, Santosh Vishwanathan, VP & MD, India Region, Intel said, "We have the will to take it very high, whether it is with semiconductors, AI...it is our moment to leap frog"

'We have 20% of world's data and 3% of global capacity'

"We need LLMs and Indic LLMs in India. Majority of LLMs (almost 7 models) are coming from outside of India"

"We need to think how we can develop our LLMs frugally"

Speaking at the CNBC-TV18 & Moneycontrol Global AI Conclave 2024, Santosh Vishwanathan, VP & MD, India Region, Intel said "AI is an 'amazing India' moment."

"India's way of doing data frugally sets us apart"

"We have abundance of AI talent, 16% of the world's AI talent"

In fintech, AI is revolutionizing risk assessment, credit scoring, and personalized financial advice. Leaders like Rahul Chari, CTO of PhonePe, and Kailash Nadh, CTO of Zerodha, will showcase how AI-driven innovations are streamlining operations, enhancing security, and delivering consumer-centric solutions. The conclave will highlight how AI is setting the foundation for a smarter, more efficient financial ecosystem.

In healthcare, AI tools are redefining patient care. From Niramai’s non-invasive breast cancer screening to Brainsight AI’s VoxelBox for diagnosing neurological conditions, AI is enhancing diagnostic precision and accessibility. At the Global AI Conclave 2024, leaders like Geetha Manjunath, Founder & CEO of Niramai, Laina Immanuel, Founder & CEO of Brainsight AI, and Sudarshan Ballal, Chairman of Manipal Hospitals, will delve into these advancements and explore how AI is transforming healthcare for the better.

In fintech, AI is revolutionizing risk assessment, credit scoring, and personalized financial advice. Leaders like Rahul Chari, CTO of PhonePe, and Kailash Nadh, CTO of Zerodha, will showcase how AI-driven innovations are streamlining operations, enhancing security, and delivering consumer-centric solutions. The conclave will highlight how AI is setting the foundation for a smarter, more efficient financial ecosystem.

At the CNBC-TV18 & Moneycontrol Global AI Conclave 2024, thought leaders and trailblazers will gather to discuss how to build a future where AI benefits everyone. Manish Gupta, Research Director at Google DeepMind, Kalika Bali, Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research India, and Manu Chopra, Founder of Karya, will explore the ethical development of AI highlighting AI’s potential—from alleviating poverty to creating dignified livelihoods in rural areas—and discuss how we can harness its power for the greater good.

Meanwhile, TK Kurien, CEO of Premji Invest, will share insights on how they’ve built a world-class AI portfolio, fostering innovation that is both ground-breaking and responsible.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is no longer just a buzzword; it’s a transformative force revolutionizing industries like healthcare and fintech.

By 2025, AI in healthcare is projected to save $200–300 billion annually through improved efficiencies and early diagnostics.

Similarly, in fintech, a $340 billion global industry, AI’s value stands at $44 billion, projected to exceed $50 billion soon.