The Centre on Thursday said that India will be amongst the top five tech destinations in the world by 2029 with our own graphics processing units (GPUs) and chipsets competing with the world.

“These five years of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s historic third term, will really catapult us into top five nations on semiconductors, AI, telecom technologies and on a variety of deep tech technologies where we are today, making the major advances,” Ashwini Vaishnaw, Minister of Electronics and IT, said on the sidelines of an event here.

The Minister launched the IndiaAI compute portal and dataset platform, ‘AIKosha’, among a slew of other initiatives under the ₹10,371.92 crore IndiaAI Mission, aimed at improving access to artificial intelligence (AI) and fostering innovation.

The AIKosha will be a one-stop shop for datasets to be available for model builders and developers to work with and launch India-specific AI models. The compute portal will be used to develop India’s own foundational model, Vaishnaw said.

He said the IndiaAI mission is running at a fast pace and within one year of its launch, there are already 14,000 GPUs of quantum compute up and running in the country. There will be another 4,600 GPUs up and running soon, Vaishnaw said adding that the cost of using these GPUs is historically low at ₹67 per hour (after government’s subsidies).

Shortlisted Companies

The Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) has shortlisted 30 start-ups/ companies under the IndiaAI Innovation Challenge across five themes – Agriculture, Climate Change & Disaster Management, Healthcare, Learning Disabilities – and Governance.

In Agriculture, selected companies include Varaha (promoting regenerative agriculture practices for a sustainable future using AI); Samagra (Krishi Sah’AI’yak – AI powered conversational co-pilot to provide personalised advisory to farmers in Indic languages); Innogle; KissanAI; Neoperk Technologies; RootGoods; SNRAS; and Qzense Labs.

In the Climate Change & Disaster Management, the selected firms include Artpark (integrating AI-based advanced forecasting for extreme heat events); Jarbits; HydroSense Lab (in IIT-Delhi); and Moskeet AI (enhances understanding of climate’s impact on mosquito-borne diseases through real-time surveillance).

In Healthcare, the firms include Endimension Technology (End to end AI platform for radiology diagnosis); Qure.ai ; Artelus; Startoon Labs (AI enabled platform for joint pain diagnostics); BrainSight Technology; Anself Dynamic (AI-based solution for enhanced early diabetic eye screening); Jivi Health (doctor-led voice-enabled AI, available in 15 Indic languages – real-time transcription of doctor-patient conversations); and Siamaf Healthcare.

Similarly, for Learning Disabilities, six firms have been selected including Hermit Labs, PerpetualBlock, Kidaura Innovations, Daira Edtech, Narottam Innovations and Banyan Intelligence.

For Governance, four companies have been selected including NoBroker Technologies, Devnagri AI, Legsys.AI Technology (Adalat AI – using AI to transform justice) and Civic Innovation Foundation (AI-powered public consultation platform for governance).