India's own AI matrix by early April: MoS IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar

It will be one of the world's largest publicly available datasets and aid next generation of entrepreneurs, says minister

India will have an artificial intelligence (AI) programme stacked with large datasets by the turn of this month, Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar said on Tuesday, while promising that it would aid entrepreneurs in fintech and digital-led sectors.

“We are launching by the end of March or early April the India AI programme, which will be one of the largest publicly available datasets in the world with three centres of excellence as announced recently in the Budget,” said Chandrasekhar, who is the minister of state for electronics and IT.

Chandrasekhar, who was addressing the India Fintech Conclave in Mumbai, added that India’s own AI ecosystem would catalyse the transformation of the country’s next generation of entrepreneurs.

On the regulatory mechanisms that the Centre has been working on, Chandrasekhar said that the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill and the upcoming Digital India Act would be the two prongs of the innovation ecosystem. He added that the two would bring in behavioural changes, especially in the way platforms interact with customers as well as citizens.

“The days, when personal data could be harvested and learning and algorithms built on that, will change. The days of anonymised data being stored for many years and for creating learning platforms will be replaced with something that is much more instantaneous in learning and storing. It will not be business as usual,” he said.

The upcoming Digital India Act (DIA), he said, will recognise the diversity and complexity of intermediaries and the different regulations required for online players. “The DIA will be enacted, designed and built, like other rules, in consultation with all the stakeholders,” he added.

The minister’s comments come at a time when the government is close to drafting the Digital India Bill to govern the digital space on key issues such as online harm, de-platforming, doxxing (publicly providing personal information of an individual, often with malicious intent) and social media algorithms. The Bill, along with the recently released draft legislations, Digital Personal Data Protection Bill and the Telecom Bill — will be part of a “comprehensive legal framework”, Chandrasekhar said.

The Digital India Act, which will replace India’s primary digital law — IT Act, 2000 — is also expected to create a regulator for the internet, similar to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.

On regulation of fintech, especially lending apps, the minister said there was a thought process to have some gating mechanism for newer apps to come online.

“We have seen in some cases, like the loan apps... there must be some kind of gating mechanism. We are going to have a discussion with the RBI (Reserve Bank of India) and the Ministry of Finance around this. We think that there must be some threshold or some sort of verification, certainly not licensing, but some sort of gating mechanism before the apps can come online or onto platforms like Google Play Store,” he added.

He stressed that AI in fintech would be a game changer. “In the Digital India Act, we will recognise AI and we are going to prescribe guard rails for AI...in the context of user harm, openness and free competition and accountability.”

Chandrasekhar agreed that big tech players being the dominant platforms was a reality, but emphasised that their dominance should not hinder consumers’ right of choice.

“We have to figure out, with the tools we have, how to make sure that dominance does not come in the way of consumers’ experience and we want to make sure they get choice and non-distorted access to services and products. If we see that their market share is coming in the way of a consumer getting a fair choice, we will certainly step in. You can see the CCI (Competition Commission of India) doing its job in some other areas,” he added.

The CCI recently has pulled up Google for abusing its position in the Android mobile ecosystem with anti-competitive practices.