 "India holds immense potential in shaping future of AI: Meta's Yann LeCun")
India holds immense potential in shaping the future of artificial intelligence (AI), not only in product development but also in cutting-edge research, said Yann LeCun, vice president and chief AI scientist at Meta, during the company’s ‘Build with AI Summit’ held in Bengaluru on Wednesday. He emphasised the country's contributions to AI, particularly in areas such as natural language understanding, as vital for advancing technologies that serve diverse populations.
“With its rich talent pool and vibrant tech ecosystem, India is already making significant strides,” said LeCun. “As AI continues to evolve, India is poised to play a pivotal role in driving innovation on a global scale.”
As AI transforms industries worldwide, Meta highlighted that open-source technology is a catalyst for innovation. This mission is especially significant in India, where a thriving developer ecosystem, combined with a rapidly growing talent pool, is setting the stage for a revolution in AI-powered digital transformation. Meta recognises the immense potential of India’s digital ecosystem, which is primed to lead AI adoption and integration across sectors. Open-source models will fuel this evolution, enabling developers, educational institutions, government agencies, and enterprises to build cost-effective, scalable solutions tailored to India’s unique challenges.
“Meta’s vision for AI is deeply intertwined with the principles of open-source, allowing us to tap into a global pool of creativity and innovation,” said LeCun. “Our aim is to build AI systems that not only empower individuals but also drive societal transformation, creating a shared AI infrastructure that reflects the world’s diversity in languages, cultures, and values.”
Democratising AI
Sandhya Devanathan, vice president and head of Meta India, added that the company believes in India’s potential to lead in AI, just as it did with mobile internet. “We’re deeply intertwined with India’s growth story, from partnering with government agencies to enabling millions of small businesses to scale,” said Devanathan. “AI breakthroughs are giving us the tools to solve problems once thought impossible, and India’s readiness to embrace open-source AI is fueling this transformation.”
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For instance, Meta’s open-source AI models, such as Llama 3.1, provide Indian developers with the tools to create AI solutions that address local challenges across sectors like healthcare, agriculture, and governance.
An example is KissanAI, which has launched Dhenu Llama 3, an AI model tailored for Indian farmers. Built on the Llama 3 8B architecture, it is optimised for agricultural tasks, supports voice and text inputs, is integrated with WhatsApp, and is accessible across India in 22 languages, including nine Indian languages.
Recently, Meta partnered with the Andhra Pradesh government to enhance public service delivery using Meta’s WhatsApp Business Solution and open-source generative AI like Llama to provide citizen-centric services via WhatsApp. Additionally, in partnership with the Telangana government, Llama models are being used to enhance public service delivery.
Meta’s open-source models are also being applied in education-focused initiatives such as Arivihan, a fully automated online learning platform. Powered by Llama models, Arivihan generates personalised lecture scripts and answers over 100,000 student queries, democratising high-quality education at scale.
At the summit, Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani, who spearheaded India’s unique identification project, said that India's Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) provides the foundation to build AI innovations rapidly and cost-effectively.
“Our goal is not to build one more LLM (large language model). Let the big players (tech giants) spend $50 billion each. We will use all that to create new things,” said Nilekani. “We will focus on creating appropriate data and making India the use-case capital of AI for the world.”
Nilekani also discussed AI’s potential for inclusion, with applications in education and agriculture. “If a farmer in Odisha can speak in Odia through a WhatsApp bot and get the best knowledge in the world, that’s inclusion. And if we can do this at scale, it changes inclusion dramatically. Or if AI can help a child learn to read Tamil or Hindi and improve the reading ability of 200 million children, that’s impact,” said Nilekani.
He also cautioned against regressive AI rules that could stifle innovation, while stressing the need for a balance between responsible AI and innovation.
Amplifying Human Intelligence
LeCun predicted that in the near future, AI systems would approach or even surpass human intelligence. “We could have teams of intelligent AI assistants smarter than humans. But this should not be seen as a threat; instead, we should feel empowered,” he said.
“AI is not going to dominate us or take over humanity; it’s going to amplify human intelligence,” LeCun added.
As part of the lead-up to the Build with AI Summit, Meta also organised an AI Hackathon to empower developers and propel innovation using the Meta Llama open platform. With over 1,500 registrations, 350 proposals, and 90 participating teams, CurePharmaAI, CivicFix, and evAIssment emerged as winners, with a special mention for SheBuilds – an all-women team. Participants also had the chance to submit proposals for the Llama Impact Grants, with potential funding of up to $100,000 and $500,000 under the regional and global tracks, respectively.