Sridhar Babu said that the state government is developing Hyderabad as a global AI capital.
Published Oct 05, 2024 | 10:29 PM ⚊ Updated Oct 07, 2024 | 6:10 PM
Sridhar Babu said that the Southern States were doing better IT exports and said that Telangana intended to collaborate with them in its endeavour to make the best use of AI.
Elaborating on the policy initiative of the Telangana government in making the best use of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Information Technology and Industries Minister D Sridhar Babu said that he was visualising the transformation of the state into a USD 1 trillion economy in the next 10 years.
The minister, in conversation with LTIMindtree Executive Vice President Jitendra Putcha on the Impact of AI on Society at South First‘s Dakshin Dialogues-2024 in Hyderabad on Saturday, 5 October, said that the target was ambitious, but a sincere effort would be made to achieve it.
The minister said that as the state embarked on its journey towards the goal, it intends to leverage technology which has now become all-pervasive. As disruptions take place in the evolution of technology the Telangana government is acting accordingly to benefit from it.
Sridhar Babu said that the Southern States were doing better in IT exports and said that Telangana intended to collaborate with them in its endeavour to make the best use of AI as the state progresses.
He said it was heartening to note that there was healthy competition among the southern states. “We are visualising a technology corridor between Telangana and Karnataka which have emerged as major hubs of Information Technology,” the minister said.
Sridhar Babu said that the state government is developing Hyderabad as a global AI capital. The stress would be on making products.
“Till now our services used to be limited to coding. But we want AI products to come out of Telangana,” he said, underscoring the need to keep a watch on the deleterious uses that AI could be put to.
“That is the reason why there is an emphasis now on cyber security. Europe has a great AI policy. We are trying to learn from it so that AI would aid in human development,” he said.
The IT and Industries minister said that the government was aware of the acute need for the required skill sets for taking full advantage of AI technology which is spreading into all spheres of life.
The state government proposed the setting up of a skill university which helps in producing the talent tailor-made for the industry needs. He referred to those who completed engineering degrees taking crash courses at small computer skills institutes in Ameerpet in Hyderabad to get jobs abroad, mainly the US, to drive home the point of how inadequate and out of date the universities had become to the needs of the market.
The minister also stressed the need for an effective regulatory framework to check the misuse of AI. The policy the Telangana government is working on is also focusing on ethical use of AI and preventing it from becoming detrimental to society.
Sridhar Babu said that the government is keen on leveraging AI to serve the people better. AI is only a tool and the government wants to use it in the best way possible.
“The government is now engaged in bringing the data of 18 departments together and leveraging AI in the work. The data with the government is quite huge and the AI is working on it to throw up solutions. For instance, we are now in the process of bringing out a family card which has all the information about the family which makes it easy for the government to serve them better.” he said.
The minister said that as the government delved deep into building infrastructure for AI it became clear that the investment that should go would be quite huge.
“We are trying to partner with the best companies in the sector, but the Centre too should help the states. After all, Telangana is also part of India and it should get help from the Center in its efforts to promote AI. It is our legitimate demand,” the minister said, referring to the plans of the government to locate an AI City on about 200 acres in Hyderabad to provide physical and technological infrastructure.
The minister also pointed out that AI can work on the data that is fed. When data is entered utmost care has to be taken so that no end beneficiary of any scheme would suffer. Finally, it is the human being who has the upper hand over the AI, at least for now. Maybe, in the future, AI may have an upper hand over human beings, he said.
Sridhar Babu, answering questions from the audience, said that the government wants to use AI to help sections of people. The AI tools would help in accurate assessment of the data like fixing the Full Tank Level and buffer zones of lakes which had come into sharp focus after the state government began demolishing illegal structures as part of the Musi Riverfront Project development.
Dakshin Dialogues 2024 was presented by KarPing in association with Governments of Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Karnataka along with Ichor Biologics, Start up Karnataka, ELCOT, K-Tech with IIIT-Hyderabad as knowledge partners.
(Edited by Majnu Babu).
