Cabinet approves 'AI Mission' with Rs 10,372 crore outlay

AI Mission: The Union Cabinet has approved the India AI Mission at an outlay of Rs 10,372 crore for five years for fostering AI development in the nation, Union Minister Piyush Goyal said on March 7.

The approved corpus will be deployed for building a high-end scalable AI ecosystem in public-private partnership mode.

"With an outlay of Rs 10,372 crore, one very ambitious India AI Mission that will encourage AI segment and ongoing research in this field...has been approved by the cabinet," Goyal said.

Implemented through the IndiaAI Independent Business Division (IBD) under Digital India Corporation (DIC), the mission will make supercomputing capacity available to various stakeholders for creating an AI ecosystem.

In a briefing after the Cabinet meeting, the Minister said the supercomputing capacity which comprises over 10,000 GPUs (graphics processing unit), will be made available to various stakeholders for creating an AI ecosystem.

GPU-based servers are in higher demand for their ability to process data at a higher speed compared to CPU-based servers.

The AI supercomputing infrastructure will be accessible to startups, academia, researchers and industry under the India AI Mission, Goyal said.

AI is poised to be the kinetic enabler for India’s digital economy, according to Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar.

"This program will catalyse India’s AI ecosystem and position it as a force shaping the future of AI for India and the world. AI is one of the greatest inventions of our time, India will play a major role in shaping its future. That is ModiKiGuarantee," Chandrasekhar posted on X.

The mission will aid states like Kerala, which have missed the bus for creating a robust tech ecosystem for years, Chandrasekhar added.

 As part of the mission, an India AI Innovation Centre (IAIC) will be set up as a leading academic institution which ensures the streamlined implementation and retention of top research talent.

The Cabinet-approved funds will enable IAIC to spearhead development and deployment of foundational models, with special focus on indigenous Large Multimodal Models (LMMs) and domain-specific models, leveraging edge and distributed computing for optimal efficiency.

The financial outlay will robust the India AI Startup Financing mechanism, facilitating streamlined access to funding for budding AI startups and catalysing their journey from product development to commercialisation.

(With PTI Inputs)