India a potential AI leader: Vishal Sikka

Washington: Former Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka, who has announced a new Artificial Intelligence startup with $50 million fund, believes India has the potential to become a world leader in AI but the key to this is integrating AI into the country's education system in a massive way.

India is at "an inflection point" when it comes to AI or artificial intelligence, Sikka said. Over the next 20-25 years, AI is going to be "a very, very big disruptor" for the Indian society because what one is seeing now in terms of automation and job losses because of automation is just the beginning, said Sikka, who announced his startup Vianai Systems last week.

"But on the other hand, if we are able to bring AI education, the ability to build AI systems to India at a very large scale, and I'm talking about like billion plus people, then India can really leap frog and become the world's leader in artificial intelligence, in AI skill and AI talent," Sikka said. Doing that requires working on multiple dimensions in parallel, he said.

Last month, at the request of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Sikka gave a presentation before the Niti Aayog how to expand the reach of AI to the Indian society in a very big way.

Representatives of some 20 Union ministries were present during his presentation on AI and India.

This, he said, required creating necessary infrastructure to bring the talent through institutions, schools and educational institutions, the ability to do AI education at a large scale.