NEW DELHI: S Krishnan, the Union Information Technology Secretary, has encouraged the Indian industry to actively embrace artificial intelligence (AI) and deploy its solutions across various sectors to foster economic development and improve public services. He dismissed apprehensions surrounding the technology, urging businesses to leverage its potential.
Information was available with The Chenab Times that Krishnan made these remarks on Friday during an event commemorating the 35th Foundation Day of the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI). Addressing concerns about the disruptive impact of AI on the IT and IT-enabled services (ITES) sector, he stated that there is no reason for fear and that AI is a critical technology for India to adopt.
“This is a technology which we need to embrace. This is a technology wave that we need to ride… as a young country, with talent, as a country with understanding…,” Krishnan said. He emphasised that the government is committed to providing the necessary foundational infrastructure to support the AI ecosystem in India.
The IT Secretary highlighted that the government’s focus is on ensuring the availability of essential components such as compute power, foundational models, and data, which are crucial for startups and companies to develop and implement indigenous AI solutions. “Our task as government is to make sure that the infrastructure to enable companies and startups to ride out the AI wave is provided, be it compute, models, data… and that is precisely the task we are engaged in,” he added.
Krishnan further explained that the true value and income generation from AI will materialise once its applications are fully integrated into the various sectors of the economy. “People have to benefit, applications and solutions have to be developed and deployed, and once that is done, that is where truly the revenue will be, that is where people will make the money, that is where the incomes will be earned, and value will be unlocked,” he stated.
Underscoring India’s rising global position in the field of artificial intelligence, Krishnan noted that the country currently ranks third in the Global AI Vibrancy Index. He stressed that India’s primary opportunity lies in the widespread deployment of AI across key sectors.
“India’s opportunity fundamentally lies in the fact of how AI will actually get deployed across a number of sectors in the economy, in manufacturing, agriculture, healthcare, education, how it gets deployed in governance in just about every sector and what difference it makes to the lives of people,” Krishnan remarked. His comments come amidst a broader national and international discourse on the rapid adoption of AI, which has raised concerns about job displacement and the future of traditional IT business models.
The Chenab Times News Desk