We have dedicated 2020 as the year of AI: KT Rama Rao

IT and Industries Minister K T Rama Rao, underlining the importance of Artificial Intelligence in all sectors in present day world, said AI must be factored into every policy or strategy, whether government, IT or non-IT industries. “We consider AI to be integral to all our work and hence in Telangana State, we have dedicated 2020 as the year of AI,” he said.

Participating in a panel discussion on ‘Empowering AI Leadership’ at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday, the Minister said: “No business can stay untouched from the AI revolution. It is expected to transform the global economy and early adopters will have first-mover advantage. Therefore, the Telangana government is setting a vision to accelerate AI readiness and develop a conducive ecosystem in the State.”

Asserting that AI will add 40 per cent to the world’s GDP by 2030, Rama Rao highlighted that Telangana declared 2020 as the “Year of AI” to capture the global AI opportunity in the coming decade. “This declaration has set in motion a bunch of coordinated initiatives with key strategic partners to achieve the State’s vision to establish Hyderabad as among the top 25 global AI innovation hubs,” he said.

When asked about the state of AI deployment currently, the Minister said the State government had deployed AI-based systems for G2C Chatbots,



identity authentication for citizen service delivery, commodity supply chain optimization, crowd counting, criminal tracking, and other law enforcement applications.

He also pointed out that the Hyderabad City Police recently piloted an AI-enabled traffic management system, saving road time for citizens. “Effective use of citizen data helps us identify the key issues our citizens face, makes us design targeted programmes and provide better citizen services,” he added.

Sharing his thoughts further, the Minister said: “As an international AI community, we need to brainstorm governance models to hold AI accountable. The Union government, in consultation with critical stakeholders, is already developing AI governance guidelines. I appreciate the WEWF C4IR network’s project on Public Sector AI Procurement guidelines.”

Minister S. Iswaran, Ministry of Communications and Information of Singapore (MCI), Henrietta H. Fore, Executive Director, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Michael Salvino, President, and Chief Executive Officer, DXC Technology, Frans Cronje, Co-Founder, and Chief Executive Officer, DataProphet and Genevieve Bell, Distinguished Professor; Director, 3A Institute, Australian National University were the other panelists who shared their thoughts during the panel discussion.