Govt announces 3 AI CoEs for healthcare, agriculture, sustainable cities

Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Tuesday announced three Artificial Intelligence Centres of Excellence (CoEs) focused on healthcare, agriculture and sustainable cities.

The CoEs will be led by top educational institutions, in consortium with industry partners and startups.

"The three CoEs in AI-healthcare, agriculture and sustainable cities', will democratise AI innovations and research to revolutionise healthcare delivery, strengthen food security and address critical urban challenges. These CoEs led by our top academic institutions will strengthen India's AI capabilities and power the growth of India's AI ecosystem," Pradhan said.

"The CoEs in AI will emerge as temples of global public good. The talent and zeal that Bharat is blessed with, in the times ahead, these CoEs will be a key element of global public policy and also emerge as solution-providers of the world.

"I am confident that the CoEs will give further impetus to the startup ecosystem in our country, help create a new generation of job and establish new paradigms of global public good," he added.

The CoE in healthcare will be led by IIT Delhi and AIIMS, while the CoE in agriculture will be led by IIT Ropar. The sustainable cities CoE will be led by IIT Kanpur.

According to officials, the centres will conduct interdisciplinary research, develop cutting-edge applications and create scalable solutions in these three areas.

As part of the vision to "Make AI in India and Make AI work for India", the establishment of these centres was announced under Para 60 of the Budget Announcement for 2023-24.

In alignment with this, the government has approved the creation of the three AI Centres of Excellence, with a total financial outlay of Rs 990 crore over the period of FY 2023-24 to FY 2027-28.

To oversee the implementation of the initiative, an industry heavy Apex Committee has been constituted, co-chaired by Sridhar Vembu, Founder and CEO of Zoho Corporation.