INDIA'S MISSION AI

India is ahead of China and Israel in artificial intelligence readiness, according to a new study. It should spare no effort to break into the top 10 as AI has been described as the ‘new electricity’.

- Hindol Sengupta

HOW READY IS INDIA for the world of artificial intelligence (AI)? This question is answered in one of the recent global lists researched and created by Oxford Insights and commissioned by Canada’s International Development Research Centre. It is called the Government Artificial Intelligence Readiness Index.

The index measures 194 countries on a scale of 1-10 on how ready their governments are to embrace and make use of a world dominated by AI. At the very top of the list is Singapore with a score of 9.186 and at the bottom is Somalia, which scores 0.168. This kind of ranking is critical to understand the adoption of a technology which has, famously, been described as the “next electricity” or as fundamental as electricity by Andrew Ng, co-founder of Coursera and former head of Google Brain.

By some estimates, investments in AI are likely to rise at a compound annual growth rate of 50.1% to hit $57.6 billion in 2021.

India comes in at No. 17 (with a score of 7.515), lower than the U.K., the U.S., Scandinavia, and most of Europe. But, interestingly, it is ranked higher than China and Israel, and beats tech heavyweights such as South Korea and even Estonia, which has the highest Internet penetration rate in the world.