India's AI Preparedness Under Review as MeitY, UNESCO Launch Assessment

By siliconindia  |  Friday, 06 June 2025, 16:26 IST

India's AI Preparedness Under Review as MeitY, UNESCO Launch Assessment
  • UNESCO, MeitY & Ikigai Law launch AI Readiness Assessment for India using global RAM framework
  • Stakeholder sessions reveal concerns around data-sharing gaps, AI output risks, and copyright challenges
  • Final report due year-end to shape India’s pro-innovation, light-regulation AI strategy with localised foundation models

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), the electronics and information technology ministry (MeitY), and law firm Ikigai Law (as the partner for implementation) have initiated a diagnostic exercise to evaluate India's readiness for artificial intelligence (AI).

The diagnostic exercise will be conducted using UNESCO's AI Readiness Assessment Methodology (RAM), an multi-dimensional assessment tool attuned to global benchmarks in accordance with the UN agency's 2021 suggestion on the Ethics of AI.

The RAM, a comprehensive questionnaire, will evaluate India's AI readiness in the areas of legal, socio-cultural, scientific and educational, economic, and technical/infrastructure.

There have been five consultations, each with AI ethics breakout sessions, spread over seven months as part of the process. There was a final stakeholder consultation on Tuesday in Delhi.

Individuals who were aware of the issue said the participants noted inadequate data-sharing policy across states, Centre, and private players, insufficient data interoperability, and the need to be cautious about AI outputs.

There was agreement that AI can't exist independently of intellectual property. Someone who was briefed on the discussions stated models like ChatGPT distort the distinctions between public domain and copyrighted content, leading to demands to rethink copyright legislation written for the print age.

The exercise will conclude in a year-end report flagging what is working, what is lacking, and what can be improved. "The report will assist us in defining a strategy towards safe, reliable, and responsible AI", MeitY additional secretary and India AI Mission CEO Abhishek Singh said. He further added that the exercise is designed to encourage a pro-innovation strategy with light-touch regulation centered on avoiding user harm.

Singh stated that four Indian startups have been chosen to construct foundation models specifically suited to regional requirements. He mentioned initiatives to enhance compute capacity to 34,000 GPUs and increase access to data through the AI Kosha platform.

Ten countries have completed RAM reports. The assessment is underway in 72 others to identify gaps and opportunities in AI readiness, said UNESCO’s Eunsong Kim. “India is quite a unique story in the RAM conversation, because it is vast and diverse. It is also extremely vibrant in the AI ecosystem”, said Kim.

Kim described how the RAM reports helped other countries, using the example of Chile, where the exercise enhanced cybersecurity, data protection, and digital policy. The process resulted in an AI task force and national AI action plan in Indonesia, which is developing its RAM report.

Experts warned India's peculiar social and cultural nuances require greater, more indigenous insight, even as the RAM exercise provides a systematic international framework.

I don't believe we comprehend the socio-economic effect AI will have on a nation like India, remarked Indian Institute of Technology Madras Centre for Responsible AI head B Ravindran. We discuss bias mitigation and explainability, usually from the Western perspective. But Indian bias is a lot more nuanced than in the US. It's not black and white, but every color in between. And we haven't systematically documented that.

 

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