33% growth in artificial intelligence hiring in India: Ashwini Vaishnaw

India has seen a 33 per cent growth in hiring for artificial intelligence (AI)-ready talent, Union Electronics and Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Tuesday. He was addressing the Rajasthan Region AI Impact Summit virtually.

 

Vaishnaw said that the government was working closely with the industry to ensure that there was development in all five layers of the AI architecture, which included the application layer, the large and small language model layer, the semiconductor chips and data centre layers, and the energy supply layer. 

“We are working with all the IT companies of the country to see how AI can be used and how applications can be developed so that the usage of this technology gets better. We have achieved success in that,” Vaishnaw said. 

To ensure that AI can be better developed and used for the benefit of citizens, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology on Tuesday also launched a new programme to train 10,00,000 young people in AI skills over the next year, he said. 

Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Jitin Prasada, while addressing the summit, said that India’s AI Mission was focused on bringing comprehensive changes in health care, agriculture, and education using technologies such as AI. 

On Tuesday, Rajasthan also unveiled its Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML) Policy 2026, which aims to promote responsible, inclusive, and innovation-driven AI in the state.

 

Addressing the gathering, the Rajasthan Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma said that the state would soon expand the use of AI across schools, colleges, and universities.

 

“Several positive changes can be brought with the help of AI. It is not just another technology, but a way to bring development to all,” Sharma said, adding that AI was writing a new language for the progress of humankind.

 

The Rajasthan government was committed to developing a conducive ecosystem for new-age companies and startups, which would be a step beyond the e-governance and digital inclusion policies implemented so far, he said.

 

The Rajasthan Regional AI Impact Summit is a series of pre-event summits held across the country in the lead-up to the AI Impact Summit, scheduled to take place in New Delhi on February 19 and 20.

 

During the summit in New Delhi, the government is likely to showcase the progress made so far in building indigenous large language models (LLMs) announced under the IndiaAI Mission.

 

Global technology and AI leaders such as Nvidia founder and chief executive officer (CEO) Jensen Huang, OpenAI founder and CEO Sam Altman, Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, DeepMind CEO and co-founder Demis Hassabis, Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates, among others, will be present for the February Summit, IndiaAI Mission CEO Abhishek Singh said.