New AI Incubation Hub to Work on Critical Tech for Army; Machine Learning, Robotics, Big Data in Focus

An Artificial Intelligence Incubation Hub (AIIH), set up jointly by the Army and Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) as part of a pact inked earlier this year, will be identifying artificial intelligence projects that may be critical for the Army and coordinate the evaluation of trials in those cases, News18 has learnt. As per defence sources, the AIIH will also be tasked with identifying partners from the industry, academia or start-ups to check the feasibility of ideas related to AI projects for implementation and will be responsible for hiring of resources and necessary hardware for validation of suggested AI projects for the force. Based on BEL's research and development expertise and areas where the Army could use AI, the new hub will be working in major domain areas of machine learning, auto-platforms, AI-based swarm technology, robotics, big data analytics, image processing as well as cyber security and AI-based response mechanism. In March this year, the Army and BEL had inked a pact to collaborate in AI for defence applications. The step was taken after the defence ministry had pushed for fast-tracking incorporation of the new tech for defence applications, as part of which the defence services were asked to collaborate with defence PSUs.