India holds a sustainable market for AI-based firms: Intel India MD

Intel India's newly introduced Intel Nervana aims to help more people work in AI innovation without making investment

Intel India said artificial intelligence and cloud-focused startups have a sustainable market in India with increasing availability of data. The US-based semiconductor and hardware major has trained 9,500 developers, students, and professors, across 90 organizations on different AI-based practices to strengthen the ecosystem in India.

The company's newly introduced Intel Nervana, a cloud-hosted hardware and software platform that helps developers and researchers test and learn applications, aims to help more people work in AI innovation without making investment.

"The big difference between then and now is that companies were focusing on global markets as well as India to get to scale. (But with) the amount of digitisation that is happening now you have a valid and sustainable market within India," said Prakash Mallya, managing director - Sales & Marketing Group, Intel India, adding that more startups would focus on AI-based solutions considering the data boom.

Mallya said it expects to train a total of 15,000 developers (including 9,500 people already trained) by end of this year.

"We are focusing on talent to make them (the startups) go faster."

He highlighted two major reasons behind the company's confidence on growth opportunities in India.

"I look at India with two lenses. One is the opportunity the developers and the AI talent can serve the country, and there is no better time than now with digital India drives and we can have local ecosystems trained well can address that. A lot of industries really ripe for disruption and healthcare is one of them.

The other is what India develops for the world," said Mallya.

To boost AI adoption by small firms and startups, the company collaborated with 40 academic institutions that are using the technology for scientific research, and 50 public and private organizations across e-commerce, healthcare, technology, defence, and banking and financial services that are slowly accepting the need for AI. Intel India's Cloud Developer Day, the workshop which was held in Bengaluru on Monday, provided hands-on training sessions for the developers sharing general principles of deep learning.