New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated RAISE 2020- ‘Responsible AI for Social Empowerment 2020,’ on Monday, in the presence of Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister for Electronics & IT, Communications & Law & Justice, Professor Raj Reddy, Turing Awardee, Padma Bhushan awardee, former Co-Chair, US President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee, Mukesh Ambani, Chairman, Reliance Industries Ltd, Dr. Arvind Krishna, CEO, IBM India, Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog and Ajay Prakash Sawhney, Secretary, Ministry of Electronics & IT.
The summit will have 45 sessions from October 5-9, with participation of around 300 speakers from academia, industry and government.
Speaking on the occasion Prime Minister emphasised that at every step of history, India has led the world in knowledge and learning. In today’s age of IT as well, India is making outstanding contributions. He also underlined the committed to make India AI hub of the world.
“India has also proved to be the powerhouse of the global IT services industry. We will continue to digitally excel and delight the world. We want India to become a global hub for AI. Many Indians are already working in this area. I hope many more do so in the times to come. Our approach to this is powered by the core principles of teamwork, trust, collaboration, responsibility and inclusivity,” PM Modi said.
“India’s National programme on AI will be dedicated towards the rightful use of AI in solving societal problems,” the Prime Minister added. Shri Modi also emphasized that we must ensure that human intellect should always be a few steps ahead of AI. “While we discuss AI, let us also have no doubts that human creativity and human emotions continue to be our greatest strength. They are our unique advantage over machines. Even the smartest of AI cannot solve mankind’s problems without blending with our intellect,” he added.
Ravi Shankar Prasad elaborated on the Government of India’s emphasis on developing AI capabilities in the country. He said that the government has set up AI centers of excellence and that more such centers will be set up to train the youth. “Technology at times overwhelms us, but we welcome AI to generate development and promote equity. India’s resource of demographic dividend will play a key role in promoting pools of skilled professionals to take the country’s AI ecosystem forward. India’s application of AI will become a beacon for the world,” he said.
According to independent studies, AI has the potential to raise India’s annual growth rate by 1.3% and add USD 957 billion to the country’s economy by 2035.
The inauguration was followed by a session on the way forward for transforming the world using artificial intelligence. The session featured tech talks by Professor Reddy, Amitabh Kant, Ajay Sawhney. The session was moderated by Abhishek Singh, President & CEO, NeGD and CEO, MyGov.
So far, more than 61,000 stakeholders from academia, the research industry and government representatives from 140 countries have registered to participate in RAISE 2020.
