The Ministry of Electronics and IT will set up centres for transformational artificial intelligence (AI) that will collaborate with academia and industry to develop AI-based solutions, a senior government official said on Friday.

MyGov CEO Abhishek Singh, who also heads Digital India Corporation and National e-Governance Division, said that a fund of funds is also being created that will provide financial support to startups at all stages of their development. While speaking at a FICCI event on AI, Singh said India has a lot of AI-skilled forces. “A lot of AI research is being done in all of our academic institutions, we still lag far behind China and the US when it comes to AI research. There are certain initiatives that have been taken but we need to go further,” he said.

Singh said the Department of Science and Technology too has set up Technology Innovation Hubs under National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems (NM-ICPS).

“But under the national programme on AI what is being thought of is that the India centres for transformational AI will be set up. These centres will be set up in partnership with the industry and academia. They will be sector specific. The solution or the application which is developed from the exercise will be assessed for scaling up across the country,” Singh said.

Telangana Principal secretary for Department of Industries and Commerce and IT Jayesh Ranjan said the state government has guaranteed that any AI solution which has relevance for the government will be adopted by it without bidding and irrespective of the experience.

He said that over 30 solutions under this scheme of the state government have been adopted and tried for projects like e-voting. “The final pillar of our initiative is around governance. Many people can misuse AI. Therefore it is very important to understand what the checks and balances are when you use AI. There are multiple issues related to governance. As a government it is our prime responsibility to set those standards,” Ranjan said. He said that a lot can be achieved by using AI but it should not be at the cost of doing anything wrong, misgovernance, etc.