India on Monday became a founding member of an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven global body called the “Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI)” which aims to promote responsible and human centric-development of AI.
Other countries involved include the US, UK, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, South Korea and Singapore.
GPAI will bring together leading experts from industry, civil society, governments and academia to collaborate on ways to show how AI can be leveraged to better respond to the present global crisis around COVID-19.
The body will be supported by a Secretariat, to be hosted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris, as well as by two Centers of Expertise in Montreal and Paris.
The news comes after India recently launched its National AI Strategy and National AI Portal that revolve around leveraging AI across education, agriculture, healthcare, e-commerce, finance, telecommunications and other such sectors.
“By joining GPAI as a founding member, India will actively participate in the global development of AI, leveraging upon its experience around the use of digital technologies for inclusive growth,” said the Indian IT Ministry.
India has been taking steps to adapt AI in day to day life. In January, deep-tech start-up CYRAN from the Delhi campus of IIT introduced a do-it-yourself kit to help young Indian techies learn how to build AI-enabled technologies.
The COVID-19 outbreak however, has highlighted the importance of working on public health and technology together in order to fight the crisis. For instance, China has used technologies such as smart imaging, drones and mobile apps to trace virus-carrying individuals.
As of now, India is moving very slowly towards internal tech advancements. The country’s funding for science and technology research is a fraction of the country's overall GDP at 0.7 percent, which is far less than China’s at 2.1 percent and America's at 2.8 percent.
