India AI Mission & Gates Foundation to Collaborate on AI Solutions
Union Minister of Railways, Electronics and Information Technology, Ashwini Vaishnaw, stated that an association between India AI Mission and the Gates Foundation, an American private foundation started by Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates, is in the pipeline.
A post on X by the Union Minister stated an MoU to develop AI-driven solutions to further enhance some important sectors of the nation will soon be signed.
AI technologies for improved crops, healthier healthcare, smarter learning and climate resilience MoU soon between India AI Mission and @gatesfoundation," Vaishnaw posted following the meeting with Gates, who is in the country.
To facilitate ease of access to good quality datasets for developing AI technologies, the government recently took a major step towards its India AI Mission by announcing AIKosha, India's sovereign datasets platform, and an AI Compute Portal.
The government also has a target to create GPUs locally over the next three to five years. This comes under the bigger Rs 10,000-crore IndiaAI Mission.
The AI Compute Portal will enable firms to access subsidised GPUs for research and development purposes. So far, roughly 14,000 GPUs have gone live, while another 4,000 are lined up.
Previously, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) had issued the procurement of 18,693 GPUs from shortlisted vendors.
Ministries dealing with agriculture, weather forecasting, and Bhashini have already submitted data to the platform, Vaishnaw said.
"India's own foundational model for AI is going well; we have 67 applications, 22 of which are for creating large language models (LLMs)", Vaishnaw said last month. Most of India's compute power will be utilized in creating sovereign AI models.
Parallelly, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's co-chairman Gates on Monday called on NITI Aayog's Viksit Bharat Strategy Room (VBSR) and had an advanced AI-enabled immersive centre experience aimed at improving evidence-based decision making by policymakers at the national level.
The 'Viksit Bharat Strategy Room' was inaugurated on March 7, 2024, as a new-age initiative in data-driven governance.
