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Raising awareness about artificial intelligence (AI) is vital to help people see it as a tool to boost productivity and improve livelihoods, said Vishal Dhupar, Managing Director, Asia South, NVIDIA, while addressing a packed audience at TechSparks Bengaluru 2024.

In fact, one should step away from the assumption that new technologies will displace jobs in the future, Dhupar said while speaking at the 15th edition of India’s most influential startup-tech summit in Bengaluru.  

“It’s so important that we break away from the mystical thing around AI. There are so many people who ask questions about what happens to us; is productivity good; would it mean somebody will replace us… We need to break that down,” he said during a fireside chat with YourStory Founder and CEO Shradha Sharma. 

Noting that productivity lies at the heart of AI, Dhupar said, “The city of Bengaluru transformed because of wonderful people who had skills. You had the skills to talk to computers… make computers do what you want them to do. Now imagine, the computer being your companion, how much more you can do… not just for yourself, but the entire 1.4 billion people.” 

With AI augmenting human capabilities, Dhupar believes it opens the door to even greater possibilities. “The work that you will do with the computer allows them to augment their work. Augmentation means prosperity, prosperity means more money, more money means more happiness and more happiness means better ideas getting implemented. And better ideas, I don’t think, any Indian is short of,” he added.

US-based chipmaker NVIDIA, one of the poster boys of the AI sector, established operations in Bengaluru nearly two decades ago. At present, the company has four engineering development centres in Gurugram, Hyderabad, Pune, and Bengaluru.

Dhupar added that India has the potential to become the intelligence capital of the world by leveraging its talent and embracing open-source technologies. By becoming practitioners and solving real-world problems, he believes Indians can compete globally and work alongside Western experts.

“The West has been doing a lot of research in open source, and who better than Indians to take advantage of it? Be the practitioner, get on that train, and start practising it. Once you start seeing the problem statements coming in, you will start solving it… it starts bringing you money… and once you climb the ladder, you will be able to work with the world of the West,” Dhupar said.