Bengaluru: Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday called for greater investment in AI infrastructure, semiconductors and quantum technology, stressing that these would be the next major frontier for India.
Speaking at a fireside chat organised by the IIT Madras Alumni Association here, she said India needed to accelerate efforts to build the hardware, skills and institutional ecosystem required to harness these emerging technologies.
“Things are happening in India in AI, but the magazines and newspapers largely from abroad — Oh, India’s missed the AI bus,” Sitharaman said, adding that this perception was partly shaped by the absence of a significant number of AI companies listed on the NSE (National Stock Exchange of India) and BSE (Bombay Stock Exchange).
She, however, pointed out that several startups in the AI sector had already become unicorns or were on the verge of becoming one.
The minister noted that there was a tendency among startups in general to be wary of listing due to the many compliances that were required to be followed, but emphasised that listing brings its own advantages.
Stating that “the cluster of listings” belongs to the AI domain, she said, if it (AI companies) had been in the stock market, maybe those writers “outside” would know that a lot of things are happening, funding is available, and institutions are coming up to fund.
“India is not lost on AI or quantum. Maybe ‘just not in the stock market’ cannot be an adequate measure to see what’s happening here. But mind you, that’s the world. We have to have these narratives also addressed, retorted, and maybe, to get the best out of the world, get yourselves listed also where you can,” she said.
Sitharaman said that India needed to strengthen its existing AI ecosystem through greater investment in hardware, training and skilling.
“… despite the call for slowing down the speed with which innovators are coming up in the AI field, I’ll still think, for India, from where it is, we still need a lot more investment towards bringing in that kind of hardware and bringing in that kind of teachers to institutions which have to constantly upgrade and keep imparting AI-based knowledge, adaptability of AI into very many sectors,” she said.
According to her, India’s MSMEs, which span a wide range of manufacturing sectors, increasingly needed AI solutions to improve productivity and compete with their counterparts in other countries.
“So investment in AI is definitely the next frontier. At what stage and at what level is something which I want both academia and industry to say,” she said, adding that the focus should be on determining the level of investment rather than questioning whether AI should be pursued.
Sitharaman said that the next large investment in infrastructure would be in AI, semiconductor chips, and building on quantum technology, emphasising the need for academia and industry to work together to build capabilities in these fields.
In addition to this, the minister also highlighted the potential for greater investment in defence production, particularly in emerging technologies such as unmanned systems and drones.
“India has already moved forward in being not just an importer…We are exporting defence equipment of different order, different size, vectors which you would never have imagined. But there is more to do in the defence production,” she said.
Noting that the global market is expanding, the minister said that even countries that were global suppliers of equipment for defence purposes are no longer able to catch up with technology, infuse technology, and advance in areas like, for instance, unmanned systems, drones or flying instruments.
“There are so many things which are happening in defence production today. We may still be important in some things, but there is so much to do in defence production. Certainly, a lot of investments will, both from private and public. India’s private sector has also done very well as regards defence production,” she added.
