Former Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka, who has announced a new AI startup with USD50 million fund, believes India has the potential to become a world leader in artificial intelligence but the key to this is integrating AI into the country's education system in a massive way. India is at "an inflection point" when it comes to AI or artificial intelligence, Mr. Sikka said. Over the next 20-25 years, AI is going to be "a very, very big disruptor" for the Indian society because what one is seeing now in terms of automation and job losses is just the beginning, said Mr. Sikka, who announced his startup Vianai Systems last week. "But on the other hand, if we are able to bring AI education, the ability to build AI systems to India at a very large scale, and I'm talking about like billion plus people, then India can really leap frog and become the world's leader in artificial intelligence, in AI skill and AI talent," Mr. Sikka told PTI in an exclusive interview. Doing that requires working on multiple dimensions in parallel, he said.

Two years after Vishal Sikka stepped down as the CEO and executive vice chairman of Infosys, an Indian IT services company, he has launched a new venture in artificial intelligence. Vianai, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based startup, last week announced its arrival with $50 million in seed financing. Sikka believes AI has the potential not just to transform business but also to "amplify humanity," as he puts it. He sees AI as a force multiplier that can tackle issues ranging from climate change to self-improvement. "I would love to see tens of millions of people to be able to build intelligent systems, and billions to be able to bring basic intelligence into anything that they do," he says. Sikka, who holds a Ph.D. in AI from Stanford University, demonstrated the Vianai platform at a keynote address at the Oracle OpenWorld conference on September 17. Before his tenure at Infosys, he spent 12 years at German software company SAP, where he was last a member of its executive board. Sikka also serves on the supervisory board of the BMW Group and as an advisor at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Intelligence (HAI).

Infosys has dropped plans to sell automation software company Panaya after failing to find a buyer for a year. Instead, the software services giant has started investing in the subsidiary, foreseeing the efficiency of the company in AI and automation strategy. The Israel-based software company's products include change impact analysis, automated code remediation, collaborative test management and test-execution, and ALM acceleration. It runs on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud. As per analysts, Panaya was a good acquisition but the asset was never used by Infosys after the buyout because of the corporate governance fight between the former CEO Vishal Sikka and NR Narayana Murthy, Infosys founder.

Watch to know the history and evolution of AI.

The technology industry is plagued with buzzword bingo in support of the fashion driven nature of the technology beast. Often confusing and occasionally downright ridiculous, we're never going to prevent smart ass marketers, ably supported by their anal-yst surrogates from making stuff up. The least some of us can do is make clear what is under discussion without mindlessly parroting what others say or conflating one concept with another. The latest in this stream of marketing laden garbage is AI or Artificial Intelligence, smeared with ML or Machine Learning and DL or Deep Learning. Add a soupçon of'robotics' just to amp the volume to something people can'get' and you have the potential for an exotic mix that both captivates the sentient mind but can also plant fear.

Infosys chief executive Vishal Sikka says he would look at building the company's artificial intelligence (AI) offerings as a standalone business, independent of the traditional services, to help build next generation applications for its customers. With its artificial intelligence platform Mana, a part of the Infosys Aikido framework, the company is looking to help clients reduce costs and improve productivity through automation and free resources to build new applications that adds value to their business. "The AI platform is not only for our own use for simplifying our work, it is also for building great next generation applications for others," Sikka said at a Credit Suisse conference recently. "We want to do this as a standalone business in its own right, not something that is feature of our existing services." Experts say, while some companies take AI as a capability to all existing business verticals, Infosys may be looking at giving more attention to it, in order to take it to the market independently.

Infosys has made an investment of R14.5 crore in a Denmark-based artificial intelligence start-up, Unsilo. Founded in 2012, this Danish company is focused on solutions in the area of advanced text analysis. Infosys has earmarked $500 million for its innovation fund which invests in start-ups across the globe. Of this, $250 million has been set aside for start-ups in India. "We will partner with Unsilo to bring their artificial intelligence and machine learning technology to our global clients. They join and expanding portfolio of innovative young companies from around the world that Infosys works with to help enterprises drive their digital transformation," said Ritika Suri, executive vice president & global head of corporate development & ventures at Infosys.

Are our kids prepared to face the challenges of a computerized world? And what role will artificial intelligence play in their lives? Investors believe it is "inevitable" that artificial intelligence will destroy millions of jobs and that governments are unprepared for it, a new survey revealed, pointing to the technology's negative side-effects. Until Thursday, the Portuguese capital, Lisbon, is home to computer nerds and geeks from around the world. Artificial intelligence and self-driving vehicles feature prominently at this year's Web Summit.

Indian IT services major Infosys Ltd has invested DKK 14.92 million ($2.14 million) in UNSILO, a Danish artificial intelligence startup focussed on advanced text analysis, the company said in a stock market disclosure on Friday. The investment comes just within a week after the IT firm, through its innovation fund, backed US-based TidalScale. "UNSILO have built an impressive semantic search engine with best-in-class text intelligence, which powers a range of advanced business processes. We will partner with UNSILO to bring their artificial intelligence and machine learning technology to our global clients. They join and expanding portfolio of innovative young companies from around the world that Infosys works with to help enterprises drive their digital transformation," said Ritika Suri, executive vice-president & global head of corporate development & ventures at Infosys.

The technology industry is plagued with buzzword bingo in support of the fashion driven nature of the technology beast. Often confusing and occasionally downright ridiculous, we're never going to prevent smart ass marketers, ably supported by their anal-yst surrogates from making stuff up. The least some of us can do is make clear what is under discussion without mindlessly parroting what others say or conflating one concept with another. The latest in this stream of marketing laden garbage is AI or Artificial Intelligence, smeared with ML or Machine Learning and DL or Deep Learning. Add a soupçon of'robotics' just to amp the volume to something people can'get' and you have the potential for an exotic mix that both captivates the sentient mind but can also plant fear.