The NITI Ayog has signed a Statement of Intent (SoI) with Google with an objective of fostering growth in India's Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning ecosystem through a range of initiatives across the country. In a press release, the NITI Ayog has announced that the SoI, with a focus on training, hackathons, mentoring startups, and providing research grants, was signed by Anna Roy, Advisor, NITI Ayog and Rajan Anandan, VP for India and South East Asia, Google. Google and its affiliates will be training and mentoring Indian startups in an accelerator programme to help them leverage AI in their business models. Google will also conduct hands-on training programmes to sensitise policymakers and technical experts in governments on AI tools, and their use in streamlining governance, through its partner NITI Ayog. Among the initiatives planned are funding of Indian researchers, scholars and university faculty to conduct research on AI, and the availability of Google's online training courses and particularly the course on Machine learning on AI to students, graduates and engineers in numerous cities across India through study groups and developer-run courses. Another initiative planned is an AI/ML hackathon focusing on solving key challenges within agriculture, education, healthcare, financial inclusion, transportation/mobility and more, possibly using Kaggle, a global platform to faciliate international participation. The Press Release states that the NITI Ayog has been entrusted to setup a national programme to conduct research and development in frontier technologies such as AI. In furtherance of this mandate, NITI Aayog has been developing India’s…
