Union Minister of State for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar engaged in a discussion with Anant Goenka during the Mumbai Tech Week on Monday, participating via virtual mode.
The minister said that the Narendra Modi government will ensure that it will exploit AI to the maximum in order to enhance government services and lives of the people.
Chandrasekhar said, “We intend to exploit AI to its fullest for achieving the goals of our economic growth, ensuring that AI makes a big impact on healthcare and drug discovery, as well as on agriculture and farmer productivity. Use cases are not about having bragging rights to compete with ChatGPT. That is not the direction we are going in. We will also go ahead and support education and there will be a focus in multiple languages of India, and multiple datasets.”
Shedding light on the regulatory landscape, Chandrasekhar highlighted the transformative approach of the Narendra Modi government, contrasting it with previous administrations that inadequately regulated critical sectors such as telecom.
Reflecting on his extensive entrepreneurial experience spanning over 12 years, the minister remarked, “The telecom sector had some of the biggest scams. So, there is also a healthy dose of cynicism and skepticism when the government talks about regulation because there is a feeling that regulation is either pushing for a particular agenda or pushing forward the need for the government or a politician to control. But our approach to creating a framework of regulation has been open, transparent, and consultative. And it is not so much about government regulating as it is about all of the stakeholders coming together and creating the guardrails that are important for the orderly growth of any segment of our economy. If it were just about innovation, if it were just about entrepreneurs doing their thing and we did not have some rules, laws, and guardrails, you would have chaos.”
Touching upon India’s evolving global position vis-à-vis China, particularly in semiconductors, the minister noted a significant shift in momentum.
“There is a trend today that, in terms of China, the momentum they had over the last decade in the areas of emerging and high tech, is slowing down and becoming blunter because of all the export control regimes being put against them. They are certainly not viewed as a trusted partner in the future of tech. I can confidently say that India is reversing the missed opportunities of the past 75 years. We have today two full-blown fabs, with $10 billion fab investments coming into the country after decades. We are also partnering with the best partners for technology for the future of semiconductors. So, along with the design innovation ecosystem on semiconductors, which is going to design the next generation chips and devices, we are also launching India Semiconductor Research Centre which is going to be a state of the art research center where the world’s biggest semiconductor makers will research in India,” the minister added.
