Why India needs an AI policy

With China making rapid progress in artificial intelligence (AI)-based research, it is imperative that India view AI as a critical element of its national security strategy, recommends an August 2016 report titled India and the Artificial Intelligence Revolution. Thanks to the increasingly digital economy, fuelled by improving education and globalization, the Indian consumer is unknowingly the country's biggest beneficiary of recent advances in AI, notes the report. From utilizing various applications powered by AI to using a range of online services such as Amazon Marketplace and Netflix that learn from consumers' online behaviour to make intelligent product and service recommendations, consumers are readily engaged with the proliferation of AI in India, whether they appreciate it or not. Indian academics, public researchers, labs, and entrepreneurs face a different challenge than the corporations that dominate the space--the infrastructure necessary for an AI revolution in India has been neglected by policymakers. While lack of physical infrastructure is certainly a major impediment, India's AI development also suffers from the paucity of the necessary cultural infrastructure, which is key for recent advances from lab to marketplace in AI.