Kant: India leapfrogged as systems built on open-source architecture, APIs

AI is a hugely transformational technology which is going to disrupt every single way of life, former Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant said on Tuesday, emphasising it must be accessible, affordable, accountable, and multilingual to avoid deepening global inequalities.

Speaking at the AI Impact Summit here, he also said India leapfrogged decades of progress in a short span because its systems were built on open-source architecture, open APIs, and global interoperability.

“Make no mistake that this is a hugely transformational technology. It’s going to cut across every sector, it’s going to disrupt every single way of life and therefore it’s very, very important that AI is made accessible, affordable and accountable,” he said at a session on AI for India’s Next Billion: Intergenerational Insights for Inclusive and Future-Ready Growth. The former G20 Sherpa further said huge sums are being invested in AI, leading to a huge amount of disruption and may end up creating a highly unequal society.

He said AI systems must be multilingual, otherwise vast sections of the population would be excluded.

“The challenge is whether we can ensure that AI reaches those below the poverty line... Whether AI can be used to transform lives of citizens and whether AI can be used to improve learning outcomes, health outcomes, improve nutritional standards which are major challenges before the world,” he said. Kant stressed that as the world progresses it is important that the power of technology is used to transform lives of citizens in the global south.

“If it is not used to the benefits of (people) below poverty line, they will remain poor forever. If you are not able to use it for improving education, which is the key to improve learning outcomes, and what was physically not possible is today possible because of the power of AI. Kant also emphasised that it is important that when India or the global south builds its models, they are made on their own data. “We’ve learned from our own digital public infrastructure, which enabled India to leapfrog in seven years, what the Bank of International Settlements said, ‘India achieved 50 years of progress in seven years’,” he said.

He said India was able to do it because the systems were built on open source architecture, open APIs and global interoperability.

“And, therefore, today, we do fast payment, we do stock market transactions, we do insurance, we do credit to the last mile on the basis of this open source, because we created the digital public infrastructure layer. But on top of that, we allow private sector to innovate and compete in the market space,” he added.

Kant further said India is building 10 large language models, opening up data sets and providing computing power to startups and researchers at lower cost.

“India must use its data, its talent, and spread out computing power to its citizens so that we can benefit from this power,” he said.