The prospects and challenges of unravelling the influence of AI in India

AI has ushered in a new era of productivity and creativity for people across the world. While Indian researchers, like their global peers, have been working on AI for quite some time now, the celebrated ‘AI spring’ has made the technology accessible to the masses at an unprecedented scale.

The importance of AI cannot be overestimated, as the technology is revolutionising everything from media production to clinical diagnosis. AI’s impact will be even more pronounced in a fast-developing and evolving nation like India with a growing youth community and a rich cultural dynamic.

In this article, we’ll take a look at the opportunities and challenges associated with AI technology in India. We’ll explore the economic implications of this technology and its impact on diverse ecosystems including healthcare, education, finance, agriculture and governance.

Prospects of AI in India

It’s clear that incorporating AI across industries can significantly bolster productivity. Studies have shown how AI use can increase total factor productivity (TFP) growth. 

Economic impact

According to EY, India can add at least USD 359 billion to its GDP with Generative AI (GenAI) adoption in 2029-30. This will contribute to an additional 5.9% to 7.2% of GDP for the country. Experts believe that generative AI will contribute USD 1.2 trillion to USD 1.5 trillion to cumulative GDP over seven years from 2023-24 to 2029-30.

It’s important to remember that these projections apply to GenAI alone, which is but a subset of AI technologies. The cumulative impact of all AI technologies would be even greater and is expected to contribute USD 967 billion to the economy by 2035. 

The figures indicate a massive growth opportunity for AI in India. According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), AI is expected to create 12 million more jobs than it will displace by 2025. Studies have shown an almost exponential demand for AI skills since 2016. 

The Economic Survey 2023-24 has projected that one of the most significant impacts of AI will be on the future of work, as AI will emerge as a general-purpose technology akin to the internet and electricity. However, AI will also replace jobs in multiple sectors including the BPO sector, where GenAI will automate routine tasks more efficiently and at a lower cost. 

Technological advancements

India has rapidly emerged as a hub for new-age technologies including computer vision, 5G, blockchain, VR (virtual reality), AR (augmented reality), deep learning, and NLP (Natural Language Processing). The creation of 5G data networks, accessible supercomputing facilities, and open-source software platforms play a pivotal role in the development of AI technologies, and this is the direction India has been taking.

Recognising the pivotal importance of AI and allied technologies, the Indian government has set up Centres of Excellence on Internet of Things (CoE IoT) across Indian cities. These aim to work as cradles of innovation and excellence, fostering a dynamic culture of startups in these areas.

The government also established the national AI portal of India, the INDIAai portal, to foster AI inclusivity and innovation. AIRAWAT (AI Research Analytics and Knowledge Dissemination Platform) has been established to provide the much-needed compute capability for AI research projects.  

India is uniquely positioned to be a global tech leader in AI, providing the perfect creative ground for enterprises globally to invest in and develop scalable solutions, which could then be implemented in other emerging economies. 

Enhancing quality of life

AI will have far-reaching implications for the healthcare sector in India. The most impact will be felt in rural and semi-urban regions with limited access to healthcare facilities due to poor connectivity. AI-based diagnostics and personalised treatment can significantly reduce the burden on physicians and improve the quality of patient care.

Furthermore, AI will also improve access to education for the general masses, creating opportunities for personalised and adaptive learning. This would help reduce dropouts and improve outcomes for students, preparing them better for the future of work.

AI will also transform the everyday lives of Indian citizens. One of the most obvious impacts of AI would be in fostering the development of smart cities, where AI algorithms would manage traffic and energy consumption to meet demands while reducing network congestion. Similarly, AI will improve customer experiences, as brands will be able to offer personalised support to distressed customers and solve potential problems without human intervention.

Indian companies like MakeMyTrip, for example, a travel booking brand, leverage AI to make the customer experience as seamless as possible. Voice-assisted technologies can help users engage better with the platform, achieving the desired results faster.

Boosting Productivity

AI will find diverse uses in every sector ranging from manufacturing to agriculture. It is expected to completely transform and automate supply chain management, helping deal with unexpected situations with effective automated crisis management. This will ultimately help businesses cut down on costs and improve customer satisfaction levels. 

AI will also help meet the rising demand for food resources through pathbreaking interventions such as the prevention of pesticide and fertiliser overuse, irrigation management and crop price prediction.

Key sectors influenced by AI

Let’s take a look at the key focus industry areas where AI intervention is expected to yield major results.

Healthcare

The shortage of healthcare services and professionals and the disparities in access to quality healthcare make the sector ripe for disruption. AI in India is helping accelerate drug development and patient-centric care, as many biotech startups put India on the global life sciences innovation map.

Education

The implementation of AI technologies will help improve the low retention rates which are particularly common in remote regions. AI can help effectively manage multi-grade classrooms and introduce remedial instruction to reduce the skill gap. Furthermore, the rise of EdTech (Educational Technology) and adaptive learning paradigms is expected to automate and customise educational content development to better suit the needs of learners from diverse backgrounds.

Agriculture

AI can help make agriculture more sustainable by directly helping to mitigate challenges including excessive use of inorganic fertilisers, falling water tables and rising pest resistance. Digital farming, precision farming and connected farms will revolutionise the agriculture sector with technologies including AgTech (Agricultural Technology). Companies like Intello Labs use image-recognition technology to monitor yield and make smart predictions for timely interventions.

Finance

Financial institutions have been using AI to enrich customer experiences with a greater degree of personalisation. Machine learning agents can analyse large pools of financial data to gather actionable insights and make specific recommendations and even financial guidance. AI can also help detect fraud and stop malicious actors right in their tracks. The technology can also help companies maintain regulatory compliance.

Government and public services

The Indian government has been incorporating AI for effective governance across public services. Consider Bhashini, for example, an AI and NLP-based technology that provides language technology solutions. The Indian Railways has also been harnessing AI to minimise accidents, improve maintenance in real-time and maximise revenue generation with optimal capacity utilisation.

Challenges in unravelling AI's influence in India

While the potential of AI technologies in the focus sectors is evident, some challenges need to be addressed for the country to leverage the real power of AI.

• Data privacy and security: AI and machine learning essentially rely on vast datasets. It is crucial to ensure the privacy and security of this data as it might endanger unsuspecting users in the event of cyberattacks and data breaches. In addition to ethical AI, we also need clear privacy frameworks and regulations to ensure informed consent and structured enforcement.

• Skill shortage: AI will require the workforce to constantly adapt and reskill. While conventional software developer roles will persist, they’ll also evolve to other specialised roles including computer vision engineers, language processing experts, and RPA (Robotic Process Automation) engineers. Many of these careers can already be seen today across industries.

• Infrastructure constraints: India will need massive AI investments to accelerate infrastructure development. Platforms such as AIRAWAT, which provide a cloud backbone for big data analytics, will need to be further strengthened and expanded. High-performance multi-user computing environments will be needed to support research and development.

• Ethical and Social Concerns: Most AI systems in use today are black box systems with zero transparency into their inner functioning. It’s critical to know which parameters they deploy to process input data and yield the output and how this processing occurs. Algorithmic biases can exacerbate problems further. AI systems might be trained on limited real-world datasets, which can cause them to reinforce inherent biases.

Government initiatives and policies

The Government of India think tank,  NITI Aayog, created a National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence with their 2018 paper. The strategy examines AI opportunities and challenges and establishes a roadmap for helping leverage the transformative power of AI.

The paper also proposes the establishment of COREs (Centres of Research Excellence for AI) to foster core technology research in the field. It also proposes to release government databases in a machine-readable format for accelerating cross-sector AI implementation.

The Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India also instituted an AI Task Force in 2017 to set up policy frameworks for AI and make recommendations for bolstering AI research programs. 

Collaboration and innovation hubs

Startups and multi-stakeholder partnerships are key pillars of the AI ecosystem in India. Healthcare has emerged as a leader in startup investments where it has been accelerating drug discovery and diagnosis. 

The National Strategy for AI recommends establishing innovation hubs and venture funds for empowering AI startups. It also encourages state governments to collaborate with these ventures. The NITI Ayyog also emphasises that it’s crucial to create an AI database portal for providing startups, researchers, government, and academia easy access to information.

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Future outlook

As AI continues to evolve, India remains focused on creating innovative frameworks that can ensure responsible, ethical and effective use of this technology. Local and global collaborations will pave the way for a transformative future where AI will make its presence felt in every aspect of everyday life in a way that does not perpetuate biases.

Conclusion

AI’s impact on India will be truly unprecedented as it will transform every industry from healthcare to education. India is poised to be the global AI leader, thanks to its large talent pool, the ability to effectively adapt to and manage change, the vibrant startup ecosystem and ongoing investments in AI research and development. 

While opportunities abound, it is crucial to focus on the deployment of ethical AI to ensure no population segment remains at a disadvantage and AI remains accessible to all.