Pre-budget Expectations: AI Driven Growth To Fast Track Education Space

PJ Narayanan Jan 23, 2024

AI technology is advancing rapidly and is literally transforming our lives every day. India has one of the largest talent pools in AI and is ranked #3 in publications in the world. AI should and will power the country’s future growth story. However, in order for us to emerge as a formidable global player, India’s capability in modern AI needs to be enhanced significantly and quickly.

Modern AI needs heavy investments that only the government can make. This includes specialised compute, widespread and accurate data collection, trained manpower, etc. Very importantly, a progressive and enabling policy framework is essential for growth and adoption of AI. India’s expenditure on R&D in Science and Technology has gone up in recent years. However, the current investment level of about 0.7 per cent of GDP is woefully inadequate. Rapid official action is required to increase efforts in AI.

Academic and applied research form the base for the development of large scale applications and startups for society. Academic research should lead the charge in this. Several of our top-tier academic institutions have strong AI research activities today. Some also have large groups that rank high globally for their research output. While this is a good start, the capacity and capability in cutting-edge AI research needs to be enhanced several-fold for India to be a strong player in the global arena in the next decade.

Academic research has be translated into products and solutions that address the unique challenges of our society quickly. Practical solutions emerging from research are frustratingly small in number in India, while the potential is enormous. Indian startups have been betting big on AI. They, however, need a more vibrant and rich overall ecosystem to thrive. The country is moving towards enhancing the ecosystem, but the pace has to accelerate given today’s techno-political global reality. The biggest hits of AI – ChatGPT, Gemini, LLaMA and others – are the results of billions of dollars of investment by the richest of internet-rich companies. Unfortunately, no Indian company of similar size or focus exists to spur our ecosystem. The role of the government is thus ever more important in India. It should not only invest heavily towards a bright AI future, but should also facilitate mechanisms for academia, industry, NGOs, other social organisations and various government departments to come together synergistically to make it happen. The creation of an enabling ecosystem and environment is perhaps the most important requirement for India.

AI-based technology has successfully transformed several human activities. In the Indian context, big impact can be derived from the following sectors.

Primary education: AI can be employed effectively to improve educational outcomes in under-resourced schools. Most of our rural and government schools struggle with student motivation and teacher effectiveness. Predictive analytics and timely interventions can improve student retention. Student-friendly curation and presentation of content in local languages is very much possible today with the help of language access and translation tools.

Skill building: Rapidly changing technology necessitates frequent retraining and reskilling of practically everyone. This is more true about AI technologies. Fortunately, AI can also provide solutions to design personalised and on-demand skilling options for a wide section of people. Micro learning systems can effectively impart skills in a job-oriented manner.

Public health: The mobile phone and internet provide enormous opportunities to screen and monitor common problems like TB, dengue and malaria. The need is for public-health players like ASHA workers, ANMs, PHCs, etc to be made smart with AI. A concerted effort towards this can truly bring in a health-revolution which is essential for our population to derive the demographic dividend.

Agriculture, MSMEs, Government, Transportation, etc, are sectors that can be made more efficient and sharp using AI-enabled technology, for a broad impact in geographies and communities that are not served adequately today.

India specific data: AI uses data as the most crucial ingredient. Effective development and deployment of AI in the Indian setting requires enormous data from our society. This aspect has not attracted as much attention so far.

Bold investments in some or all of the above directions in this budget is intensely hoped. Funds have to be augmented with measures to overcome the thick bureaucratic structures that surround all execution channels. All good intentions will go waste without them. Three centres of excellence (CoE) in AI to develop cutting-edge AI solutions were announced in last year’s budget, but are yet to be established. India needs actionable and bold efforts to be a leader in AI-driven technology. Self-reliance has been a theme highlighted in recent years. We do have an opportunity to be in a leading position in AI, given our talent, unique problems and data.

About the author

The author of the article is director of IIIT Hyderabad.