AI needs legislative guardrails of safety, trust: Rajeev Chandrasekhar

The world is aligning with India’s views that artificial intelligence (AI) needs guardrails of safety and trust even as it could be the “kinetic enabler” for India’s $5-trillion economy goal, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, minister of state for electronics and information technology, has said.

“While AI is the buzzword and ChatGPT is fancy, we need legislative guardrails of safety and trust, which can ensure that AI can never be misused and or used by bad actors to cause harm,” the minister said at Bengaluru Tech Summit on Thursday.

AI is the most impactful invention in recent times, he said, adding that if harnessed correctly, it can transform healthcare, agriculture, governance, education, language translation and inclusion. “We are focused on capturing AI, building the capabilities, datasets, AI compute and training capacities,” he said.


India AI Summit, to be held on January 10, will focus on talent, AI compute, AI chips, and foundational large language models.

“In a nutshell, the government’s vision for AI is that we see AI as the kinetic enabler for the $1 trillion economy target that we have set for ourselves,” Chandrasekhar said.

While acknowledging that “what is responsible use of AI” is subjective, safety and trust are unambiguous definitions.

Semiconductor R&D hub

Bengaluru hosts the engineering, and research and development centre of almost every semiconductor brand, including Advanced Micro Devices, LAM Research, Applied Materials, Intel and ICT company Fujitsu, the minister pointed out.

“I read four days ago that Fujitsu did a two-nanometre complete bare bones chip design in Bengaluru,” he said.

102 unicorns, $65 billion FDI

Chandrasekhar acknowledged the economic contribution and value add that startups drive in the country. “We have 102 unicorns, $65 billion foreign direct investment (FDI) that have come into startups alone. They’re not just important for our technology vision but economic vision too,” he said.

Many of the startups the government supports as a part of its design-linked incentive scheme can become unicorns, he said.

Calling students to electronics

While coding and programming is a good option, the minister advised students, even those in physics, chemistry and material sciences, to explore electronics, systems design, semiconductor design, manufacturing, and packaging.

“There is a huge shortage of talent globally and if you develop lab skills, there are huge opportunities, including in the drone ecosystem. Innovators in electronics have great opportunities. India’s goal is to create 200,000 students with masters, PhDs, and post-doctoral talent over the next few years,” he said.