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Union Minister for Education Dharmendra Pradhan has announced the launch of three AI Centres of Excellence (CoE) focused on healthcare, agriculture, and sustainable cities in New Delhi. 

These Centres of Excellence, established under the vision of “Viksit Bharat,” will be led by top educational institutions in collaboration with industry partners and startups, who will drive interdisciplinary research, create cutting-edge AI applications, and develop scalable solutions in these sectors. 

“We can transform healthcare in India with the help of digital technology and specifically AI. AI has a huge potential in delivering healthcare to the poorest in our small towns and villages through our government hospitals,” said Srikanth Nadhamuni, Founder CTO Aadhaar & Co-founder and Chairman, Trustt. 

“As the CTO of the Aadhar project in 2009, the approach we took for Aadhar was it should be digital, it should work online..no more of these cards and booklets, which are not portable across the country. That served us in understanding Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) at the entire population level for the country. If we can take the DPI approach for these AI Centres of Excellence, I think we can transform hospitals and healthcare at every nook and corner of the country.” he added. 

An Apex Committee, co-chaired by Sridhar Vembu, Founder and CEO of Zoho Corporation, has been formed to oversee its implementation. 

The launch event was attended by K. Sanjay Murthy, Secretary/HE, Srikanth Nadhamuni, Founder CTO Aadhaar & Co-founder and Chairman, Trustt, Rajan Anandan, Managing Director of Peak XV, along with Directors of IITs, heads of higher educational institutions, industry leaders, startup founders, and senior government officials.

“India has the right to be number one when it comes to these areas:  healthcare, agriculture, and sustainable cities in AI. We have more data than anyone else in the world. Data is at the heart of what AI is. Number two, we have terrific talent, thanks to Centres of Excellence and other government initiatives like the AI Mission which will make compute more affordable,”says Rajan Anandan, Managing Director of Peak XV. 

This initiative aims to strengthen India’s AI ecosystem and promote high-quality talent in the three sectors.

The establishment of these centres was earlier announced in the 2023-24 Budget, as part of the vision to “Make AI in India and Make AI work for India”.  The government approved a financial outlay of Rs 990.00 Cr over FY 2023-24 to FY 2027-28 for this initiative.

“We have to learn to keep our own talent here. That’s vital. We have to keep them here in the next 10 years, 20 years to serve our country, to solve our problems. That’s where these Centres of Excellence are going to matter. Because we are going to bootstrap a lot of efforts, create companies, nurture the talent and create opportunities so that our talent can stay home,” said Sridhar Vembu, CEO of Zoho.