Read Article
What was the need to establish AI and robotics tech park, ARTPARK?
After graduating from IIT Kanpur, I worked about 20 years in the industry – out of which I spent 12 years in the artificial intelligence space. I started the first AI Chatbot; however, we could not sell the technology. Later I spent a year in Silicon Valley trying to understand how they produced cutting-edge-technology companies, and that is when I observed that there is a need for an ecosystem in India. I returned to India and started pI Venture. We raised almost 2.5 crores, and bagged around 14 companies – some of them are leading AI companies in India. Soon we realised that the kind of companies US, Israel, and even China were producing were not being started or conceptualised in the country, and that prompted us to go to the Government of India and establish ARTPARK under the National Mission of Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical System (NM-ICPS).
ARTPARK aims at leveraging the research that happens across the globe. We want to enable the use of AI and robotics for all, and take it to a wide variety of audience. When people are empowered to use these tools to solve their own problems, then only we will actually see a different and progressive nation.
What are the major concerns you would like to highlight in context to conceptualising, executing, and promoting AI and robotics technology?
When we talk about innovative and new technologies, we need the right set of standards to be adopted by all, and similarly we need precise and correct regulation methods as well. I am glad to mention that we are working closely with the government in this direction – not just within the country, but also on an international level. I have had the chance to represent India as a nominated expert on innovation and i. I believe, in the next two to three years, you will see the standards on AI and robotics.
The next important element is achieving “five nines” reliability. And in order to get that reliability, we need 1 trillion data points. Is it possible? Do startups have that much data with them? The answer is – NO. Access to gold standard databases is the next major concern. India is a huge nation, and a tremendously large amount of data is being generated, but it is not segregated, analysed and stored in any manner. We need datasets from across the industry – data sets which can be used by startups to develop solutions – solutions which are just revolutionary. ARTPAR has indeed started working on this component.
Further, we need to promote AI and robotics in collaboration with state governments. We need to work with the central government in order to enable AI and robotics education in schools and colleges across the states. I must mention that we had started the Lablet Program of ARTPARK which offered a series of laboratory-oriented short courses in the area of robotics and autonomous systems. In our experience, students in traditional undergraduate and postgraduate programs typically lack exposure to problems involved in building real systems and working prototypes. Keeping this in mind, this one-of-a-kind program aims to provide the much-needed hands-on experience in designing and implementing robotic systems to solve real world problems. Each Lablet will be of roughly one month duration, and will be equivalent to a two-credit course in a traditional engineering curriculum. It will consist of lectures, lab assignments, …….