Union IT Minister Vaishnaw chairs MeitY committee meeting, highlights AI and emerging tech progress

Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Wednesday chaired a meeting of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Meity) where deliberations focused on the issues of Artificial Intelligence, emerging technologies and electronics hardware manufacturing, PTI reported.

Senior officials from the Ministry conducted detailed presentations on the agenda topics, elaborating on key initiatives, their progress and future roadmap, an official release said.

In his opening remarks, Vaishnaw, Minister for Electronics and IT, underlined that AI and related technologies are transforming the world today. He also informed the committee that electronics manufacturing in the country has made significant progress over the last decade, according to PTI.

While manufacturing has grown 6-fold, electronics exports have grown 8 times; and the sector employs 25 lakh people in the country, Vaishnaw said. A presentation on new age technologies was made before the committee, highlighting the transformative role of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Quantum Computing and the Internet of Things in shaping the world.

"The committee was apprised of India's progress in the AI sector, including the improved global ranking," the release said. AI use cases across various sectors such as healthcare, agriculture, judiciary and disaster management were also discussed, as per PTI.

"Officials also outlined the IndiaAI Sovereign Stack aimed at ensuring digital self-reliance through indigenous models, compute infrastructure, datasets and skilling initiatives," the release further said.

Highlighting the rising profile of India in AI leadership, as reflected in India hosting AI Impact Summit recently, the officials informed the committee that necessary followup is also being done on the achievements of the Summit. Vaishnaw informed the panel that the government's support in the form of facilitating affordable GPU, has helped address one of the key barriers to growth of the AI ecosystem. (With Agency Inputs)