Ashwini Vaishnaw, the Minister for Electronics and IT has urged India’s leading IT companies to develop an indigenous operating system. He was speaking at the Dataquest India Digital Leadership Conclave in New Delhi on March 7.
"I'd like to give a challenge to our big tech companies, like Infosys, TCS, Wipro, to develop an operating system for mobile for our country. They been doing very well in providing services. (But) the time has come when we must become a product nation. The government will support this fully," Vaishnaw said.
Speaking on the role AI is playing in transforming India’s startup ecosystem, Vaishnaw said ensuring India’s startups the best possible capabilities available globally was among the government’s key priorities.
“80 percent of our startups today are AI powered. Almost 4 lakh AI professional are working on different projects (in India)…We will certainly be among the top few nations in the world who are at the cutting edge of technology,” he said.
This comes a day after the IT Ministry launched the GPU portal – which currently provides 14,000 GPUs, and AI Kosha – a non-personal datasets platform under the IndiaAI Mission. In parallel, the government is also working on developing the country’s own foundational AI model, for which it has already received 67 applications.
In an effort to foster talent for AI from India’s rural regions, Vaishnaw said, “We have tied up with the industry and taken up a program to train one million people across the country, largely in rural areas and small towns, because that is where the talent doesn’t get enough opportunities.”
The government is also holding consultations with experts to develop an indigenous chipset, which is expected to come up in the next 3-4 years, Vaishnaw had said on March 6.
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