Context

India joined the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence, as one of the founding members to jointly work towards an ethical, human centric development and use of AI.

About

• This multi-stakeholder global coalition includes Australia, Canada, the European Union, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, Singapore, Slovenia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
• Born out of successive G7 summits in 2018 and 2019, GPAI has also been notable for China’s absence.
• While non G7 members like India, South Korea, Mexico, New Zealand have found a place at the high-tables for a joint development of AI standards, this new coalition is also being seen as a means to counter China’s growing influence in the technology.
• GPAI will be supported by a Secretariat, to be hosted by Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris, as well as by two Centres of Expertise – one each in Montreal and Paris.
  • The OECD would also be a Permanent Observer to GPAI’s governing bodies and its experts participate in the working groups and plenary meetings.
• This is also a first initiative of its type for evolving better understanding of the challenges and opportunities around AI using the experience and diversity of participating countries.
• In order to achieve this goal, the initiative will look to bridge the gap between theory and practice on AI by supporting cutting-edge research and applied activities on AI-related priorities.

India’s Role

• By joining GPAI as a founding member, India will actively participate in the global development of Artificial Intelligence, leveraging upon its experience around use of digital technologies for inclusive growth.
• 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.
• India has recently launched National AI Strategy and National AI Portal and has plans to leverage AI across sectors such as education, agriculture, healthcare, e-commerce, finance, telecommunications.
• Membership to the high tables of development of AI-related policies presents an opportunity for India, a country that has been keen to leverage the technologybut has seen limited innovation in the field.
• In fact, a discussion paper titled “National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence” released by NITI Aayog in June, says:

“Adoption of AI in India has remained rather limited, less than a quarter of firms in India are using AI in any form for their business processes and startup ecosystem in AI is virtually non-existent.”

• NITI Aayog, in its discussion paper, mentions five barriers that have to be negotiated in order to “truly reap the benefits of deploying AI at scale.”

The COVID-19 outbreak however, has highlighted the importance of working on public health and technology together in order to fight the crisis. The development will be significant in such times.