Artificial Intelligence race with China: Panel to create road map

NEW DELHI: To counter China's commitment towards artificial intelligence, the government has formed a high-level committee headed by NITI Aayog vice chairman Rajiv Kumar to lay out a roadmap for India's research and development on AI and its applications. The panel, which will be a mix of government, academia and industry officials, will be notified soon. The government wants to ensure India does not fall behind in emerging technologies and hence the urgency to roll out a nationwide AI programme that will include robotics and data analytics. China has prepared a threestep roadmap to become the world leader in AI by 2030. A preliminary meeting on AI was held in January and was attended by NITI Aayog member VK Saraswat, the secretaries of biotechnology and science and technology, former Nasscom head Kiran Karnik, former Infosys CFO Mohandas Pai, IIT faculty members including Pankaj Jalote and Pulok Ghosh, besides top officials from Flipkart, NetApp and TIE Ventures.