Algo Rhythm: Can India shine in the world of artificial intelligence?

With the highest number of graduate youths in the world, India has the potential to shine in artificial intelligence (AI) research and development. According to the Artificial Intelligence Index Report 2019 by Stanford University’s Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI), a comprehensive report collating hundreds of AI data points from across the world, India ranked top in four out of five industrial sectors in terms of AI skill specialisation, suggesting the large IT talent pool in the country graduating to more advanced skills. India may  also be the largest employer of AI talent (see chart 1).

In June 2018, the government gave a huge fillip to AI R&D through a National Strategy for AI, which aims  to create and scale Indian-made AI solutions for the rest of the developing world, and empower Indians with necessary skillsets. India is also taking the lead in research in AI. In 2018, India had the third highest volume of AI journal papers, after China and the US.

Global trends in AI

• In 2019, global private AI investment was over $70 billion  

• From a total $1.3 billion in 2010 to AI start-ups raised over $40.4 bn in 2018; funding has increased at an average annual growth rate of over 48 per cent 

• Between 1998 and 2018, the volume of peer-reviewed AI papers has grown by more than 300 per cent

• Prior to 2012, AI results closely tracked Moore’s Law, with compute doubling every two years. Post 2012, compute has been doubling every 3.4 months