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With the Cabinet approving the Artificial Intelligence Mission earlier this year, the government is in the process of finalising various pillars of AI technology, Union Minister Jitin Prasada said on Tuesday.

In March, the government approved the India AI Mission with an outlay of Rs 10,372 crore for five years to encourage AI development in the country.

The approved corpus will be used to build a high-end scalable AI ecosystem in public-private partnership mode.

Speaking on the role of Artificial Intelligence and technology, the Minister stated that the AI mission has been cleared by the Cabinet, adding “we are in the process of finalizing the various pillars of the AI technology”.

Addressing a Ficci event, the Minister of State for Commerce & Industry and Electronics & Information Technology said, the PLI (production-linked incentive) schemes are aimed not only to enhance India’s manufacturing capabilities and exports but also for the country to become a manufacturing hub.

“Even before the full disbursement of PLI scheme has happened, we are seeing a good amount of investment happening in plant and machinery, creation of new jobs with increase in production”, he added.

The minister shared that in spite of the PLI scheme, not incentivising exports and no disbursements happening for exports, exports to the tune of Rs 4 lakh crore have been achieved.

The PLI scheme has garnered over 1.28 lakh crore investment, exports got boosted by Rs 4 lakh crore, and resulted in employment generation of 8.5 lakh, the Chief Economic Advisor V Anantha Nageswaran said last week.

Prasada further said the government will give the necessary thrust and support to ensure India becomes a manufacturing hub.

Keeping in view India’s vision of becoming ‘Atmanirbhar’, PLI schemes for 14 key sectors were announced with an outlay of Rs 1.97 lakh crore (over $26 billion) to enhance India’s manufacturing capabilities and exports.

“We ensure that we get the best technology transfer, we will ensure that the value addition in our products happens. In the next five years, I can assure you that in the air conditioner sector, 75 per cent of it will be indigenized, and India will be producing quality standard air conditioners,” Prasada noted.

Highlighting the importance of the MSME sector, the minister said that it is one of the priority sectors for the government.

He said that the recent Budget announcements also focus on the MSME as it has the potential to create more jobs.