Govt will take a call on who can access Indian datasets, says MoS IT

Indian datasets will have restricted access and the government will decide the criteria for granting access to them, said Rajeev Chandrasekhar, minister of state for electronics and information technology, on Monday.

The government on Monday held the first round of consultations on the IndiaAI programme with industry stakeholders, policy advocates, and academics to design a national AI (artificial intelligence) data platform and open up datasets held by the government for start-ups, researchers, and innovators. “We need to design a national AI data platform, making data held by government organisations and the private sector available to researchers and innovation. The India dataset has a particular relevance that has not been seen elsewhere. There’s a perception that if we can do this right it will be a gold standard of datasets,” said Chandrasekhar.

He added the programme would ensure that Indian datasets would help start-ups and researchers in building applications. The minister invited industry stakeholders and experts to volunteer on designing key aspects of the programme. The government plans to launch the programme by the end of April after around 40 days of consultation.

When industry stakeholders pointed out the need to focus on more fundamental and applied research on AI, the minister said: “We will create an innovation and research network with an architecture that can collaborate among universities, researchers, and industry stakeholders.”

The programme includes the design of the India Data Management Office (IDMO), which will aim to improve access, quality, and the use of public sector data to catalyse data-driven governance and decision-making, and create an ecosystem for data-based Innovation and research.

Other top issues discussed here included the situation of Indian datasets, research projects on AI, and ways to create use cases with the technology. Representatives from industry bodies such as the National Association of Software and Service Companies, policy advocacy groups, think tanks, Infosys, and Tech Mahindra took part in the consultations.

The meeting discussed the possible incentives that can be given to the private sector to open the non-personal datasets held by them.

The experts asked the government to create an index for responsible AI for standardising ethical practices and reducing concerns such as human bias.

The programme will also establish three Centres of Excellence (CoE) for AI, as announced by the Union Budget 2023. The centres will be set up in top educational institutions, allowing leading industry players to partner in conducting interdisciplinary research and develop cutting-edge applications and scalable problem solutions in agriculture, health, and sustainable cities.

The minister suggested the CoEs should not be conventional in design and have healthy private sector participation and involvement from start-ups and should focus on application-use cases.