India to step up AI development plans
India is on the verge of launching a new national programme on artificial intelligence (AI), according to the Interim Minister of Corporate Affairs, Piyush Goyal. The programme will focus on nine priority areas (not yet announced) that will include, the establishment of an AI centre and a hub of centres of excellence. A national AI portal will also be set up to allow all citizens to access AI technologies. In line with this programme, India’s Ministry of Human Resource Development announced that several higher educational institutions across the country have set up new centres for AI, offering AI-related programmes focused on topics such as deep learning foundations and applications, foundations of AI and machine learning, reinforcement learning, and probabilistic reasoning in AI.