Data is new natural resource; need to be mindful of AI impact on jobs: Satya Nadella

Data is the new natural resource that can empower every citizen in a country like India, Microsoft's India-born CEO Satya Nadella said on Monday during a discussion on the digital world, cloud computing and artificial intelligence. There is need for "recognising that data is the new natural resource instead of looking at it as being unevenly spread" for empowering every citizen of India, Nadella said in a dialogue with Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani. In India, several state governments are using data resources and computing power for governance, Nadella said. The government of Andhra Pradesh is using cloud services to track high school dropouts in order to build interventions while ICRISAT is using machine learning to improve the yield of farmers, he said. "I was looking at the big consumers of the public cloud (computing) and one thing that came up was the Election Commission in Tamil Nadu,'' Nadella said with reference to the usage of CCTV cameras in Tamil Nadu at election booths in 2016. Nadella said that the broad technology areas that he is currently excited about is cloud computing, artificial intelligence and augmented reality. Much of the entrepreneurial energy in India is around cloud computing, he said. What has been seen so far in terms of artificial intelligence is statistical machine learning by using the power of data and real AI is still in the future, Nadella said. "In Punjab, I believe we took all the call centre data … We analysed the speech so that the government can get a better handle on what are the issues that can be automated and what needs human services.