Budget 2018: Niti Aayog to establish National Programme on Artificial Intelligence

In what may be the only significant announcement made for the startup industry in Budget 2018, Amitabh Kant-led Niti Aayog will establish a National Programme to direct efforts in the area of Artificial Intelligence towards national development.

These will largely go into research & development and its applications.

"We are not only focusing on 'Ease of Doing Business' but also 'Ease of Living'," Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had pronounced in his fifth Union Budget speech. The promise of "additional measures" to strengthen the startup ecosystem and the lack of budgetary support for the same seem to have fallen short from the lens of the startup ecosystem.


With agriculture, health and education receiving a bulk of the Budgetary allocation this year, appeals from the startup industry seems to have fallen by the wayside.