Bengaluru ranks 5th among top 50 global AI cities: Karnataka IT Minister Priyank Kharge

Silicon city Bengaluru ranks fifth among the top 50 artificial intelligence (AI) cities globally, says Karnataka IT Minister Priyank Kharge at the Bengaluru Tech Summit 2024.

Highlighting the nation’s progress in adapting to new technology compared to countries such as the US and Germany, the minister believes that India has a demographic advantage with talent.

“Out of the top 50 AI cities in the world, Bengaluru is number five. In terms of AI adaptability across the globe, we are number one. We have a 57% AI adaptability in the Indian ecosystem, followed by the US at around 24%, and then Germany. If you ask me what the government needs to do to ensure we tap into the value of AI, firstly, we need to focus heavily on skills," Kharge said.

The minister, who was speaking at a panel discussion titled “AI for India 2030”, further pointed out that Karnataka has shifted from merely being a regional tech hub to catering to global markets.

The session was moderated by Purushottam Kaushik, Head, World Economic Forum. Other panellists included Daisy Chittilapilly, President of Cisco India and SAARC; Smita Deorah, Co-founder and Co-CEO of edtech unicorn LEAD; Balakrishna DR, Head of AI at Infosys; and Harshil Mathur, CEO of Razorpay.

“To ensure that we have the most talented human resources—then we don't cater only to the local environment but also to the global ecosystem. The Karnataka ecosystem is no longer catering to Bengaluru. We have close to 837 Global Capability Centers (GCCs) here that are researching for their headquarters in America and Europe, for innovating and inventing for the world," Kharge said.

The state government launched a new GCC policy focused on reskilling and upskilling to attract an additional 500 GCCs to the state, aiming for a $50 billion output solely from Karnataka.

Kharge further announced the launch of a new Center of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence, established in partnership with the IIT Alumni Centre Bengaluru (IITACB).

Solving sector-specific use cases

Pointing out AI’s role in reshaping the education sector, Deorah said, "India has 270 million school-going children. If this had to be a country by itself, it would be the fifth largest country in the world, and data shows that our kids are lacking in basic literacy and basic numeracy.”

Amid a shortage of skilled teachers, AI can serve as an enabler to achieve better learning outcomes, Deorah proclaimed.

“AI can be a big enabler because we have lots of children but not enough teachers or skilled educators. AI can play the role of both being an assistant to teachers, where it can give a lot of insight and predict which child needs support. The teacher can focus more on personalised support and remediation versus just teaching to the averages,” she added.

From a services perspective, the IT services industry has a great opportunity with AI, says Infosys AI Head Balakrishna DR.

“Take Infosys as an example: we have created industry blueprints for 23 different industries on how they can adopt AI, which use cases will give them the best benefit. We have come up with how they should manage their data, and the strategy. Just like in the old internet era or the digital transformation, the Indian IT industry actually powered enterprises making that transformation across the world. I think the same opportunity lies even with AI,” he explained.

Daisy Chittilapilly, President of Cisco India and SAARC, addressed the recent debates on whether India should focus on building large language models (LLMs) or applications.

“Is building LLMs our path to success? Or are we the data capital of the world? We know all the use cases that matter. We have a startup ecosystem, which is the third largest, and second largest—depending on which report you read. Maybe our monetisation comes from using our brain power to focus on solving problems, because all technology is [built to] ultimately solve all problems,” Chittilapilly said.

This follows Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani's remarks at Meta's Build with AI summit in Bengaluru last month, where he encouraged India to prioritise developing AI use cases over building LLMS.