Artificial intelligence must be tailored to India's local needs: Experts

Kanpur: Sep 12 (PTI) Artificial intelligence must move beyond generic applications and be tailored to India's local needs in education, healthcare, agriculture and governance, experts said at the second edition of AI Manthan held at Chhatrapati Shahu Ji Maharaj University (CSJMU) here on Saturday.

IIT-Kanpur Director Manindra Agarwal said AI had evolved over nearly seven decades, driven by advances in mathematics, algorithms, machine learning, computing power and large datasets, with powerful GPUs and deep-learning systems accelerating its growth.

With AI increasingly being used by students to generate assignments and answers, institutions need to focus more on critical thinking, problem-solving and original research, he said.


Former IIT Kharagpur director Partha Pratim Chakrabarti stressed the need for smaller language models trained on local datasets for applications in agriculture, education, sanitation and governance. Such models require fewer computing resources and can function in areas with limited connectivity, he said.

Uttar Pradesh Governor Anandiben Patel emphasised AI-based agricultural solutions centred on farmers, including systems to assess crop losses accurately and ensure appropriate compensation.

She advocated a single-window platform to check the quality of seeds and pesticides, monitor crops and provide weather information.

An AI platform, Krishi Mitra, is being jointly developed by IIT Kharagpur and CSJMU to analyse crop and soil data and identify assistance needed to improve farmers' productivity. On healthcare, IIIT Allahabad's Dinesh MS said AI could reduce repetitive work for doctors and support diagnosis, particularly in radiology, where it could serve as a "second reader" to detect subtle abnormalities.

He highlighted federated learning, enabling AI models to be trained across hospitals without transferring patient data.

CSJMU Vice-Chancellor Vinay Kumar Pathak said AI Manthan had expanded from its initial focus on higher and technical education to healthcare, agriculture and other sectors. AI Manthan 2.0 will continue on Sunday with discussions involving experts from education, research, healthcare, agriculture, government and technology.