As per a tweet by Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad, India has joined Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI or G-Pay), which has leading nations including the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union as founding member.
“Delighted to announce that India has joined the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence or #GPAI today as a founding member. This multi-stakeholder international partnership will promote responsible and human centric development and use of AI. #ResponsibleAI,” tweeted Prasad.
The multi-stakeholder initiative is aimed for responsible development of Artificial Intelligence of AI, with focus on human rights, diversity, innovation, inclusion, innovation, and economic growth.
One unsaid aim of the initiative is to take on China, which has left countries around the world miles behind in development of Artificial Intelligence.
The democratic world is worried about China’s exponential rise in the field as the country is using the technology for- snooping on other countries; to built massive surveillance program through face recognition; and abuse of human rights in province of Tibet and Xinjiang.
A simple Google search about ‘countries leading Artificial Intelligence technology race’ would tell you that China is miles ahead of any other country with many million dollars startups, including Sensetime, which became first AI startup to raise more than a billion dollar. Every year more than 10 billion dollars is being invested in AI startups, more than half of which goes to Chinese startups.
Therefore, the countries around the world have come together for cooperation in the field, which is expected to help these countries to race ahead of dragon, and develop the technology for ethical use. Apart from India, many other countries which joined the group include Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Mexico, and New Zealand.
“By joining GPAI as a founding member, India will actively participate in the global development of Artificial Intelligence, leveraging its experience around use of digital technologies for inclusive growth,” the statement from Indian government said.
As per the statement by the group, GPAI will be supported by a secretariat hosted by Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris, as well as by two Centers of Expertise- one each in Montreal and Paris. “In collaboration with partners and international organizations, GPAI will bring together leading experts from industry, civil society, governments, and academia to collaborate to promote responsible evolution of AI and will also evolve methodologies to show how AI can be leveraged to better respond to the present global crisis around COVID-19,” reads the official statement.
As of now, China is leading the global AI race, given the significant push by Communist government in the last few years. In 2017, the Communist government released plan to make China global leader in AI by 2030, with the industry worth 1 trillion yuan (150 billion dollars). “Artificial intelligence has become a new engine of economic development,” said the state Council’s official document.
The Chinese strategy on AI would be focused military uses and smart cities, with tech giants like Alibaba and Baidu facilitating the development. American government is worried over China’s advancement in the field, and a paper released by Pentagon suggested tighter control of Chinese investment in American startups.
“If we allow China access to these same technologies concurrently, then not only may we lose our technological superiority, but we may even be facilitating China’s technological superiority,” reads the paper.
India could help the free world to beat China in AI, as Indian engineers are among most prominent researchers in the field. The cream of AI researchers of United States- which is second most powerful nation in the field after the dragon- comes from India. India has significant number of top class human capital, which could lead the free world in AI race, if funded properly.
GPAI would help the researchers across the free world to collaborate and fund ideas of each other, if a capital starved but talent rich country like India faces crunch. In the next few years, we can assess that whether this new grouping is successfully taking on China’s dominance or not.