India seen as leader in Global South because of digital transformation: Meity Secretary

"India is seen as the leader of the Global South in the overall space of digital transformation, and DPIs are an important space through which that has been enabled," the secretary told ANI, on the sidelines of Carnegie Global Technology Summit.

Taking the argument forward, the Secretary said AI is an advancement in technology, which needs to be harnessed for the public good.

"Given India's experience in DPIs, I think India is well situated in making sure, given the skill levels, the talent which is available, given the kind of early advancements we've made through the India AI Mission," said the secretary. "We are in a good place to actually make AI available through a DPI framework for the global south."

India has signed MoUs with several countries for cooperation in the field of sharing of digital public infrastructure so far.

Among others, a key emphasis of the Indian government has been on ensuring that the benefits of Indian DPIs are not limited to India only; other countries, too, benefit from it. (ANI)

Earlier, in a keyote addres in the same event, S Krishnan said India not just wants to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a technology for itself, but to see that such emerging technologies are deployed across the world, particularly the Global South.

India launched the IndiaAI Mission on March 7, 2024, to bolster India's global leadership in AI and democratize the benefits of AI across all strata of society

Earlier this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended the AI Summit in Paris. India was invited to be the co-chair at the Paris summit. Next year, India will host an AI summit.

He supplemented that India AI mission takes care the entire slew of needs for the development of an AI ecosystem. India now has about 15,000 GPU worth of compute, and adding.

He also gave an update about the evaluation of AI-Large Language Model applications, which is in the final stage. The government will shortlist entities that will receive funding under the India AI Mission.

"Under the India AI Mission, we've called for proposals. We've called for suggestions. We had an excellent response. The first round saw nearly 67 responses. The second round saw close to 100 responses. I think we'll just have to wait about a week or so before we are able to announce this," the secretary told ANI.