India’s GPU Boom: 17,000+ GPUs Successfully Installed Under the IndiaAI Mission

In an unprecedented stride toward digital empowerment, India has crossed a significant milestone by successfully installing over 17,300 GPUs under its ambitious IndiaAI Mission. Far from being a simple hardware update, this marks a tectonic shift in how the country envisions its role in the global AI landscape: not just as a user of AI, but as a builder, architect, and innovator.

At the heart of this transformation is the ₹10,372 crore initiative to establish a nationwide compute infrastructure. The response has been overwhelming—over 34,000 GPU proposals flooded in across the first two rounds, with the third already wrapped up and awaiting evaluation. These aren’t just numbers. They represent India's move to democratize AI access across startups, research labs, and public institutions through a model that’s affordable, shared, and scalable.

Sovereign Algorithms for a Diverse Nation

India’s true differentiator may lie not in the hardware, but in what it enables. Projects like Sarvam and Bhashini signal a shift from data sovereignty to algorithmic sovereignty—developing indigenous large language models trained on culturally grounded, linguistically diverse datasets. This is critical in a nation where Hindi and Tamil are just the tip of the linguistic iceberg.

UPI for AI? A Public Infrastructure Vision

Much like how UPI redefined digital payments, the government aims to create a public AI backbone through the IndiaAI Compute Portal and strategic ties with CDAC and NIC. By offering GPU access at up to 40% reduced cost, this infrastructure is turning AI from an elite tool into a public utility, allowing a biotech startup in Lucknow to tap the same resources as a research center in Bengaluru.

From Brain Drain to Brain Gain

India’s AI brainpower has often migrated in search of compute capacity—but that could change. With on-shore, cost-effective infrastructure, researchers and developers can now push boundaries from within India’s borders. This access isn’t just about convenience; it’s about creating a nurturing ecosystem that invites innovation to flow from India, for the world.

A Subtle Diplomatic Flex

While key partners like Nvidia are pivotal to this rollout—Yotta Data Services is deploying H100 GPUs en masse—the infrastructure itself remains rooted in Indian soil. This reflects a savvy, techno-strategic non-alignment: not beholden to any bloc, but assertively Indian in design and purpose.

India is betting big on compute capacity not just as a technical enabler, but as a lever of national influence and innovation. The GPU rollout is the foundation—but the edifice being built is one of sovereign innovation, equitable access, and global ambition. As the chips power up, so does a new chapter in India's AI story.

India's 1st Artificial Intelligence Community Center “HexArt Institute” Launched By Hexagon in Partnership with NASSCOM Foundation

Hexagon Capability Center India (HCCI), the largest product development unit of the technology major Hexagon AB, has launched HexArt Institute, the India’s first Artificial Intelligence Community Center in Hyderabad today. Shri Jayesh Ranjan, IT & EC, Secretary, Government of Telangana, inaugurated and dedicated the center to the city of Hyderabad and the State of Telangana.

HCCI is proud of its CSR education outreach and considers this institute as a positive and timely societal responsibility initiative. The center will cover more than 350 students every year across multiple batches. Established at a cost of INR 64 Lakhs, the institute incorporates state-of-the-art infrastructure, IT hardware & software and a well-designed curriculum. HCCI will invest further INR 30 Lakhs YoY to manage the AI community center.

The purpose of HexArt is to democratize AI knowledge cum skill to the masses, and to provide free education on AI to the community. The fundamental and advanced level courses are designed for students from Class 8 to Class 12 and senior engineering graduate respectively. NASSCOM Foundation, the CSR partner for this endeavour, brought in their expertise of setting up learning centres. They also onboarded Li2 Technologies as implementation partners to design and execute the courses along with administrative responsibilities.

The courses and certification programs at HexArt Institute have been specifically designed by industry professionals. The courses will encourage students to engage in self-learning, innovations, and inventions. The 2,000 sq ft, air-conditioned and fully equipped facility at Mehdipatnam is now open to residents of Hyderabad and the State of Telangana.

Sharing the government’s goals, Honourable Minister of IT & Industries, Shri KT Rama Rao, in his message, said “Telangana has defined its vision to be a global frontrunner in AI and other emerging technologies. The State is on the path of building a conducive Innovation ecosystem. He reaffirmed by saying that a skilled workforce will be critical to unleash the government's 2020 AI vision’s full potential.”

Shri Jayesh Ranjan, who inaugurated the setup, commented that "2020 is commemorated in Telangana as the year of AI and it will be a key focus for the coming year and beyond as well.” He also spoke about the state's plans of creating talent for emerging technologies - "It is critical that we build a strong talent pool and AI is going to play a key role. I fully appreciate Hexagon’s contribution in fuelling the community level growth for futuristic technology”, Ranjan said.

Debjani, President NASSCOM, who kept herself abreast of the development of the center, commented “Data and Artificial intelligence can add $450-500 billion to India's GDP by 2025. We must start today and prepare a talent pool that can help India propel to be the leader in AI tech. It’s nice to see companies like Hexagon taking a crucial step in this direction. We believe that with close collaboration between the private sector, the public sector and the civil society, and by focussing our collective expertise and energies on the most pressing problems of today, AI can achieve the goal of a socially empowered, inclusive, and digitally transformed India.”

Announcing the opening of the HexArt Institute, Navaneet Mishra, VP and General Manager, HCCI, said “The goal of AI community center is to empower and upskill the next generation of youth with AI skills. We need to make AI pervasive to compete and succeed in today’s world. As the oldest MNC in Hyderabad, we are committed towards building the state’s talent community, and advance their growth.”

Earlier this year, HCCI signed an MoU with the Government of Telangana. The company is more than happy to contribute towards the government's commitment to sustain and grow the AI knowledge base in the city and state. Mishra added.

About hexagon: Hexagon is a global leader in sensor, software and autonomous solutions. We are putting data to work to boost efficiency, productivity, and quality across industrial, manufacturing, infrastructure, safety, and mobility applications.Our technologies are shaping urban and production ecosystems to become increasingly connected and autonomous — ensuring a scalable, sustainable future.

Hexagon (Nasdaq Stockholm: HEXA B) has approximately 20,000 employees in 50 countries and net sales of approximately 3.9bn EUR, with an operating margin of 25%.

Learn more at hexagon.com and follow us @HexagonAB. 

ABOUT HCCI:

Hexagon Capability Center India (HCCI) is the largest technology R&D hub of Hexagon, a global leader in digital solutions that enable productivity and quality improvements across manufacturing, infrastructure, safety, and mobility applications.

Innovations, consistent deliveries and ever-evolving technologies at HCCI has helped various Hexagon units to grow its business and customer base globally. HCCI has product teams that work on product portfolios for PPM, Safety & Infrastructure, Geospatial, Geosystems, Mining, Manufacturing Intelligence and Positioning Intelligence. In addition, HCCI has dedicated services teams that provide implementation services for PPM and SI customers worldwide.

HCCI, one of the earliest IT companies in the city of Hyderabad has a rich history of 33 years (earlier known as Intergraph Consulting Pvt Ltd) and currently employs a workforce of over 1,400 colleagues.

AI World School Unveils Online AI Learning Platform for School Students

CHENNAI, India, Dec. 14, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- AI World School (AIWS) is launching its remote self-learning platform providing AI and Coding technology education to students from ages 7 to 18. 

AIWS announces the global launch of its self-paced online learning platform providing AI learning experiences to students at home, to homeschoolers and in K12 schools.

The world is changing faster than ever amid these testing times of COVID. Children safety is paramount more than ever, and they need to face these challenges and navigate them successfully in the future. To combat this, AIWS believes that innovation, creativity & STEM skills will be essential to prepare one's' child to become future-ready. AI & Coding provides a competitive advantage when applying to colleges, internships, and for career opportunities. It is important that every child is digitally literate from the safety of their homes, in order to thrive and succeed in an increasingly complex world.

Children today grow up around AI-powered devices. AIWS believes that with the knowledge of how AI works and its impact, they have the potential to create innovative solutions to real world problems transforming societies and shaping the future of the planet.

The AIWS Founders and Governing Board who have been involved with education, robotics and computer science for decades, have carefully curated a new student-centered remote learning landscape focused on the five Big Ideas of AI. The course is designed to be fun, creative, collaborative, ethical, empathetic, inclusive, purposeful and for social good.

Students ages 7 to 18 will bring their projects to life with easy-to-use age-appropriate coding tools such as S4AIWS Scratch AI extension, Sn4AIWS Snap! AI extension, Phiro Code smartphone app, MIT App Inventor, Python and JavaScript.

The 200+ hands-on real-time coding experiences are intuitive, self-paced, self-directed with a variety of STEM challenges and project based learning approaches. The learning outcomes of the experiential curriculum are expected to accelerate individual performance, and drive both college and career success.

"Parents and educators are looking for online technology platforms that support student-centred learning, help work collaboratively and share their creations with peers around the globe in a personalized learning environment. At AIWS, we have designed a new transformational learning landscape focused on bridging this gap. We seek to empower children to explore, learn & create with AI in an age-appropriate environment," said Mr. Ramana Prasad, Chairman, AIWS.

"At AIWS, we want to inspire students to discover the elements of AI and flourish in an AI driven world," said Ms. Aditi Prasad, COO.

Online flagship AI courses from AIWS at launch prices of INR 8,999 and micro courses starting at INR1,999, which can be easily accessed worldwide via the internet.

About AI World School

We are a team of educators and technologists who are passionate about helping students explore and understand the fundamentals of AI and coding and the role that it plays in our daily life.

Our mission is to help students become future-ready as they prepare for careers that will require an understanding of artificial intelligence as a key skill to prepare children to flourish in the era of AI.

AI World School is brought to you by Robotix the makers of Phiro, Robobricks, and Playbits which are products used in classrooms around the world. In 2016, Phiro from Robotix was recognized by Intel as one of "America's Greatest Makers." 

Amidst COVID-19, India Noted Highest Increase in AI Usage Compared to the US, UK and Japan - PwC Report

Amidst the global pandemic, India has noted the highest increase in the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) as compared to major economies -- the US, UK and Japan), according to a global study by PwC India. 

94 % of the over 200 chief executives in India surveyed said they’ve either adopted or are planning to implement AI in their companies, said the PwC report. Enterprises are no w more aware than earlier that AI is no longer a ‘nice to have’ technology but a 'must have', the report said.

Indian organisations are firm in their resolve to combat the challenges of the pandemic, with the manufacturing sector reconfiguring traditional practices to automate value chain processes and the Government engaging with technology firms to solve problems in the new normal (e.g. contact tracing, contactless thermal screening). 

Similarly, universities, start-ups and the healthcare sector have developed AI-powered diagnostic guidance systems to help patients and models to predict the spread of the virus.

While Indian businesses still lag behind their global counterparts when it comes to scaling up AI across the organisation (5% in India vs 25% globally), India has a much higher proportion of firms (46%) with implementation in some business functions compared to the global average (28%). Significantly, more Indian enterprises are considering the use of AI (24%) compared to the global average (15%), which indicates rapid acceleration in the adoption of AI in India post the COVID-19 pandemic.

The increased adoption of AI can be attributed to the following factors -

• Post COVID-19, AI-enabled use cases like contactless selling and delivery have gained traction due to changes in buying behaviour. 
• As organisations are reopening their manufacturing and office locations, AI-enabled tools are helping them enforce best practices from a health and safety perspective. 
• The remote workforce is relying more on AI-enabled digital assistants to do their work without loss of productivity. 
• As past knowledge and experience may fail to provide the right insights in these times of disruption, organisations are increasingly making decisions based on current data using AI-enabled predictive and prescriptive tools. 
• To reduce cost of doing business, combat disruption and become future ready, organisations are adopting AI-based digital twins and synthetic data. This is also enabling them to build resilient ecosystems (e.g. supply chain and operations).

Industries which have been adversely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, such as travel and hospitality and financial services, are adopting AI to navigate the increased business uncertainties and disruptions.

Sectors which have faced the most disruption due to COVID-19 have embraced AI in a more definitive manner because for them it is more of a business necessity than a ‘good-to-have’ solution. AI adoption in India was led by Travel and hospitality (89%), followed by TMT (86%), financial services (82%), and healthcare & pharma (73%).

While the survey for India was conducted between August and September, globally it was conducted among 670 high ranking officials in September-October. The study said India witnessed the highest increase in AI use compared to major economies like Britain, Japan and the US, with over 70 per cent of Indian organisations having implemented AI in some functional areas in 2020 as compared to around 62 per cent last year. Also, over 90 per cent companies are implementing or planning to invest in AI solutions to address current business concerns, the survey said.

Call for Code Names India-Based AI Farm as the APAC Regional Winner

Agrolly wins global prize for innovative solution to help small farmers as they struggle with effects of climate change

New initiative enables global developers to leverage proven Call for Code platform to help combat racial injustice

Where most people see challenges, developers see possibilities. That's certainly been the case in 2020. Call for Code founding partner IBM (NYSE: IBM) and its creator, David Clark Cause, announced the Asia Pacific Regional Winner. AI Farm – an Indian entry – was named the Asia Pacific Regional Winner for an intelligent system that evaluates climate and soil conditions to provide farmers with information to adapt their crop strategies.

 
AI Farm will receive an award of $5,000 USD. The application is an intelligent system that aims to provide farmers with the information they need to adapt their crop strategies to optimize water usage and control disease. The solution is a low-cost system that uses sensors to monitor ground water levels, temperature, and humidity. The system uses the IBM Cloud, IBM Watson IoT platform, IBM Watson Visual Recognition, and Node-RED flows to create a hyperlocal weather forecast specific to the farm. The global winner, Agrolly, was recently announced and awarded the grand prize.
 
“Call for Code has become a marquee name among the world’s developer community as a platform to collaborate, improve technical skills, and tackle the world’s largest problems. Agrolly and AI Farm were both named top solutions this year, highlighting the importance of agriculture. Technology can help farmers combat growing challenges from climate change through the application of emerging technologies like cloud, AI and IoT. Call for Code has proven that the powerful combination of innovation and technology can pave the way for creating Indian-made solutions to tackle and solve relevant local challenges,” said Priya Mallya, Country Leader, Developer Ecosystems, IBM ISA.
 
The 2020 Call for Code Global Challenge asked developers to create solutions to help communities fight back against climate change and COVID-19. A panel of industry leaders, climate change experts, COVID-19 front line workers, and judges selected AI Farm as the Asia Pacific winner after a stringent selection process.
 
The global recognition went to Agrolly, an application to help the world’s small farmers cope with the environmental and business challenges of climate change. Another climate change solution, OffShip, received fifth place. Three COVID-19 solutions were also honored. Business Buddy was given second place, Safe Queue was given third place, and SchoolListIt was awarded fourth place.
 
Call for Code also introduced a new initiative—Call for Code for Racial Justice – inviting developers to apply their skills and ingenuity to combat systemic racism.  The new initiative began with Black IBMers and allies taking action with an internal IBM program called the Call for Code Emb(race) Challenge. Solutions created and developed through that program are now being opened to the world to build upon through Call for Code for Racial Justice. 
 
Call for Code unites hundreds of thousands of developers to create and deploy applications powered by open source technology that can tackle some of the world’s biggest challenges. Since its launch in 2018, this movement has grown to more than 400,000 developers and problem solvers across 179 nations, and has generated more than fifteen thousand solutions using technology including Red Hat OpenShift, IBM Cloud, IBM Watson, IBM Blockchain, data from The Weather Company, and APIs from ecosystem partners like HERE Technologies and IntelePeer. The global winner announcement came during a virtual event, the “2020 Call for Code Awards: A Global Celebration of Tech for Good.” A full replay can be watched here.

NITI Aayog Proposes Overseeing Body for Responsible Management of AI in India

For responsible management of Artificial Intelligence in India, Government think-tank Niti Aayog has proposed setting up an oversight body which will play an enabling role regarding technical, legal, policy and societal aspects of artificial intelligence (AI).


In its draft 'Working Document: Enforcement Mechanisms for Responsible #AIforAll', Niti Aayog said the oversight body must have industry representatives as well as experts from legal, humanities and social science fields.

"Use cases for Artificial Intelligence have emerged across sectors and the technology has shown rapid
growth over recent years. Approach to manage risks cannot be isolated. Such approaches must be highly participatory and must keep pace with technology. Risk across use cases and contexts vary and also evolve over time. One-size-fits-all approach is not sustainable.", said the document.

"A flexible risk-based approach must be adopted. In this regard, the National Strategy for Artificial
Intelligence proposes an Oversight Body.", said the draft.

Oversight body may identify design standards, guidelines and acceptable benchmarks for priority use
cases with sectoral regulators and experts. These may be made mandatory for public sector procurement

The oversight body must play an enabling role under the following broad areas -

1. Manage and update Principles for responsible AI in India
2. Research technical, legal,policy, societal issues of AI
3. Provide clarity on responsible behaviour through design structures, standards, guidelines, etc
4. Enable access to Responsible AI tools and techniques
5. Education and Awareness on Responsible AI
6. Coordinate with various sectoral AI regulators, identify gaps and harmonize policies across sectors
7. 'Represent India (and other emerging economies) in International AI dialogue.

Besides this, Niti Aayog has also proposed highly participatory advisory body called Council for Ethics and Technology, with a multi-disciplinary composition including Computer Science and AI experts, Legal and relevant sectoral experts, Humanities and Social Science experts , among few others.

Ethical Committees are accountable for enforcement of principles in the AI system’s lifecycle and must ensure the AI system is developed, deployed, operated and maintained in accordance with the Principles.

The Aayog has invited comments on the draft document by stakeholders by December 15.

The Niti Aayog had in June 2020 released a draft paper titled 'Towards Responsible#AIForAll' and had said there is a potential of large scale adoption of AI in a variety of social sectors.

IIT Roorkee Scientists Leveraged Artificial Intelligence to Predict FDA-approved Commercial Drugs to Tackle COVID-19

Roorkee, 12th November 2020: Amid the rapid transmission of COVID-19, a group of scientists from IIT Roorkee, led by Prof. Soumitra Satapathi have leveraged Artificial Intelligence (AI) to predict 10 FDI- approved commercial drugs available for the treatment of the disease. The study has been published in the prestigious journal PLOS One. The other co-authors of the study include Sovesh Mohapatra, Prathul Nath, Manisha Chatterjee, Neeladrisingha Das, Deepjyoti Kalita and Partha Roy.

The complexity in drug design and protocols regarding clinical trials often inhibit the process of developing various new drug combinations for the disease. IIT Roorkee scientists have successfully deployed Machine Learning-based-AI techniques to predict the commercial drugs that could be used for the treatment of COVID-19.

"Our study predicts around ten FDA approved commercial drugs that can be used for the treatment," says Prof. Satapathi, Principal Investigator and an Associate Professor of Physics in IIT Roorkee.

Many of the predicted drugs are already in use for the treatment of COVID-19, and some are in trials.

"Given the need of the present time, the present approach will save a lot of resources and time for synthesizing novel drugs and thus will be useful for a vast majority of the medical research community," Prof. Satapathi added.

The Machine Learning (ML) model based on the naive Bayes algorithm was used to predict the drugs that could be used for the treatment of COVID-19. The study shows that around ten FDA approved commercial drugs can be used for repurposing. Among all, it has also been found that the antiretroviral drug Amprenavir would probably be the most effective drug based on the selected criterions.

IIT Roorkee is an institute of national importance imparting higher education in engineering, sciences, management, architecture and planning, and humanities and social sciences. Since its establishment in 1847, the Institute has played a vital role in providing technical human resources and know-how to the country.

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India's National Programme on AI will be Dedicated towards the Rightful Use of AI in Solving Societal Problems : PM Modi

• RAISE 2020 –PM Modi inaugurates 5-Day RAISE 2020 Global AI Summit, says committed to make India AI hub of the world.
• India's resource of demographic dividend will play a key role in promoting pools of skilled professionals to take the country’s AI ecosystem forward: Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad
• When 1.3 billion Indians are digitally empowered, they will unleash proliferation of digital enterprises to create faster growth, better standards of living and superior opportunities : Mr. Mukesh Ambani
• AI will unlock USD 15.7 trillion in productivity by 2030: Dr. Arvind Krishna, CEO, IBM India
• AI can help break language barriers: Professor Raj Reddy
• Over 61,000 people from 140 countries participating in Mega Digital Summit from October 5-9
• Global AI Experts to deliberate on role of AI in strengthening digital platforms, creating robust data and AI frameworks for social empowerment

Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi inaugurated RAISE 2020- ‘Responsible AI for Social Empowerment 2020,’ late yesterday, in the presence of Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister for Electronics & IT, Communications & Law & Justice, Professor Raj Reddy, Turing Awardee, Padma Bhushan awardee, former Co-Chair, US President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee, Shri Mukesh Ambani, Chairman, Reliance Industries Ltd, Dr. Arvind Krishna, CEO, IBM India, Shri Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog and Shri Ajay Prakash Sawhney, Secretary, Ministry of Electronics & IT. The summit will have 45 sessions from October 5-9, with participation of around 300 speakers from academia, industry and government.

Speaking on the occasion Prime Minister emphasised that at every step of history, India has led the world in knowledge and learning. In today's age of IT as well, India is making outstanding contributions. He also underlined the committed to make India AI hub of the world. 

"India has also proved to be the powerhouse of the global IT services industry. We will continue to digitally excel and delight the world. We want India to become a global hub for AI. Many Indians are already working in this area. I hope many more do so in the times to come. Our approach to this is powered by the core principles of teamwork, trust, collaboration, responsibility and inclusivity,” Shri Modi said. 

"India's National programme on AI will be dedicated towards the rightful use of AI in solving societal problems," the Prime Minister added. Shri Modi also emphasized that we must ensure that human intellect should always be a few steps ahead of AI. "While we discuss AI, let us also have no doubts that human creativity and human emotions continue to be our greatest strength. They are our unique advantage over machines. Even the smartest of AI cannot solve mankind's problems without blending with our intellect," Shri Modi said. 

Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad elaborated on the Government of India’s emphasis on developing AI capabilities in the country. He said that the government has set up AI centers of excellence and that more such centers will be set up to train the youth. “Technology at times overwhelms us, but we welcome AI to generate development and promote equity. India's resource of demographic dividend will play a key role in promoting pools of skilled professionals to take the country’s AI ecosystem forward. India's application of AI will become a beacon for the world," Shri Prasad said. 

In his address, Mr. Mukesh Ambani said India has the power of data generated by over a billion Indians that would catapult it to becoming a leading global AI player. "When 1.3 billion Indians are digitally empowered, they will unleash proliferation of digital enterprises that will create faster growth, better standards of living and superior opportunities across society," Mr. Ambani said. 

According to independent studies, AI has the potential to raise India’s annual growth rate by 1.3% and add USD 957 billion to the country’s economy by 2035. 

“At a global level, AI will unlock USD 15.7 trillion in productivity by 2030 and it has the potential to not only boost economic growth but improve the livelihoods of millions around the world,” Dr Arvind. Krishna said. 

Professor Reddy emphasized the benefits of AI in bridging language barriers and for managing pandemic situations. 

"Today, we can do things which were impossible to do 50 years ago. Using AI, anyone can translate from any language to any language ride in a self-driving car and play Chess at Grandmaster level. Looking forward, we can expect AI to help eliminate lockdowns, replace one-size-fits-all education by personalizing education based on individual student capabilities and interests, watch any movie and talk to anyone in any language and empower the people at the bottom of the pyramid," he said. 

The inauguration was followed by a session on the way forward for transforming the world using artificial intelligence. The session featured tech talks by Professor Reddy, Mr. Kant, and Mr. Sawhney. The session was moderated by Mr. Abhishek Singh, President & CEO, NeGD and CEO, MyGov. 

So far, more than 61,000 stakeholders from academia, the research industry and government representatives from 140 countries have registered to participate in RAISE 2020. 

From agriculture to fin-tech and healthcare to infrastructure, India is witnessing rapid development in the integration of artificial intelligence. On the back of its technological prowess and the richness of its data, India can become the AI laboratory of the world and contribute to inclusive development. The RAISE 2020 Summit (http://raise2020.indiaai.gov.in/) serves as a platform for discussion and consensus building to help create a data-rich environment, which will help to eventually transform lives globally.

About RAISE 2020:

RAISE 2020 is a first-of-its-kind, global meeting of minds on Artificial Intelligence to drive India's vision and roadmap for social transformation, inclusion and empowerment through responsible AI. Organized by Government of India along with Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and NITI Aayog, the event will witness robust participation from global industry leaders, key opinion makers, Government representatives and academia.

India’s Fastest HPC-AI Supercomputer PARAM Siddhi – AI to be Commissioned by C-DAC and NVIDIA

C-DAC to Commission India’s Fastest HPC-AI Supercomputer ‘PARAM Siddhi – AI’, Built with NVIDIA DGX A100 Systems Connected with NVIDIA Mellanox HDR InfiniBand Network, C-DAC HPC-AI Engine, AI Software Stack and Cloud Platform.

Representative

NVIDIA today announced that the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) will be commissioning India’s largest HPC-AI supercomputer ‘PARAM Siddhi – AI’ -- a machine with 210 AI Petaflops (6.5 Petaflops Peak DP), based on the NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD reference architecture comprising of 42 NVIDIA DGX A100 systems, connected with NVIDIA Mellanox HDR InfiniBand networking along with indigenously developed HPC-AI engine, Software Frameworks, Cloud Platform by C-DAC.

With the approval of Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad, Hon’ble Minister of E&IT and L&J, Shri Ajay Prakash Sawhney (Secretary, MeitY), Prof Ashutosh Sharma (Secretary, DST) and recommendation of National Supercomputing Mission (NSM – a Government of India Initiative) Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) chaired by Dr V K Saraswat, Member, Niti Aayog this initiative will put India’s leadership on top of global AI supercomputing research and innovation, thanks to the dynamic efforts of Shri Abhishek Das, young innovative Scientist and Program Director (HPC-AI Infrastructure Development) at C-DAC for conceiving the idea, designing the architecture of the largest HPC-AI Infrastructure in India.

Dr Hemant Darbari, Director General, C-DAC said, “PARAM Siddhi – AI, the State-of-the-Art large-scale HPC-AI scalable infrastructure that will be established under National Supercomputing Mission (NSM) at Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) with support from Niti Aayog, Ministry of Electronics and IT, Department of Science and Technology, Government of India using NVIDIA Next Generation technology, C-DAC software stack and Cloud platform will play a pivotal role in developing a vibrant ecosystem for research and innovation in science and engineering. With three decades of expertise in AI and augmenting the AI and Language Computing Mission Mode Program of C-DAC, this infrastructure will accelerate experiments and outcomes for India specific grand challenge problems in Health Care, Education, Energy, Cyber Security, Space, Automotive and Agriculture. It will catalyze partnerships with the Academia, Industry, MSMEs and Start-ups.”


“NVIDIA is committed to supporting nations across the globe in their mission to advance the frontiers of AI-enabled research,” said Charlie Boyle, General Manager and Vice-President of DGX systems at NVIDIA. “The turnkey NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD architecture is central to helping C-DAC deploy its supercomputer in record time. With this new AI supercomputer, C-DAC will be able to unleash AI innovation at incredible scale to help India address some of its most important challenges now, and in the future.”

Mumbai-based Fractal Raises Funding and Spin-Out its Second AI-driven Biz Theremin.ai

Fractal, (fractal.ai), a global leader in artificial intelligence and analytics, powering decisions in Fortune 500 companies, today announced that one of its subsidiaries, Theremin.ai, has raised funds from OLMO Capital. The funds will be used for building its algorithmic investment product and for expanding its talent.

Founded in early 2019, Theremin.ai uses deep reinforcement learning to drive quantitative investment strategies for the Indian and Asian capital markets. Theremin's cutting-edge technology platform identifies unique alpha investment opportunities in financial markets incorporating both conventional and alternate data sources.

"Theremin.ai's focus is to generate high-value alpha investment strategies and hence there is a need for large datasets, exhaustive research, and specialized talent. This round of financing will help us to continue investing in these areas", said Hemant Kothavade, Founder & CEO, Theremin.ai.

"We set up Theremin.ai to test whether our algorithms could find signals in a nearly perfect capital markets context and we are encouraged by the results", said Srikanth Velamakanni, Co-founder, Group Chief Executive & Vice Chairman at Fractal. "We are excited about two of our AI product businesses (Qure.ai and Theremin.ai) raising external equity financing during this extraordinary year. It validates our approach of finding great entrepreneurs within and outside Fractal and building AI businesses with them while staying consistent with our mission of powering human decisions with AI" he continued.

"We are very excited to partner with Theremin.ai, who are transforming the way investment decisions are being made today. We believe not much innovation has happened in this regard in the Indian and Asian capital markets, and there is a tremendous potential to use AI to make better informed and high-performance Investment strategies", said Gulu Mirchandani Chairman, OLMO Capital. "Theremin.ai has the right team and capabilities to capitalize on the situation, and we are glad to partner with them to help accelerate their work in this space", added Gulu Mirchandani.

"Fractal's Ideas2Business initiative is focused on fostering cutting-edge ideas and innovation that help in creating new and market-ready AI-based digital products, platforms and solutions. Our spin-outs of Theremin.ai and Qure.ai are testaments to the success of this program", said, Satish Raman, Chief Strategy Officer, Fractal. He added, "Cuddle.ai and Eugenie.ai are two other AI products that we believe will soon take the same route, even while we have many others in the early stages, which we will bring to the market."

Fractal's Ideas2Business program currently includes over eight software solution platforms and four AI companies. The AI companies include 1) Qure.ai, which uses AI & deep learning techniques to provide an automated interpretation of radiology scans like X-rays, CTs, and MRI scans. Recently, Qure.ai received FDA® approval for one of its products and raised $16 million from Sequoia Capital and Mass Mutual Ventures. 2) Theremin.ai which deploys deep reinforcement learning algorithms to identify unique alpha investment opportunities in financial markets. 3) Cuddle.ai, an AI-powered decision co-pilot that helps surface insights from data through nudges and predictive inputs, and helps business leaders make better and quicker decisions every day, and 4) Eugenie.ai, which has two products that enable businesses to spot, explore and exploit anomalies and patterns that have bottom-line impact.

About Fractal

Fractal is one of the most prominent players in the Artificial Intelligence space. Fractal's mission is to power every human decision in the enterprise and brings AI, engineering, and design to help the world's most admired Fortune 500 companies.

Fractal's products include Qure.ai to assist radiologists in making better diagnostic decisions, Cuddle.ai to assists CEOs, and senior executives make better tactical and strategic decisions, Theremin.ai to improve investment decisions, and Eugenie.ai to find anomalies in high-velocity data.

Fractal has more than 1,700 employees across 16 global locations, including the United States, UK, Ukraine, India, and Australia. Fractal has consistently been rated as India's best companies to work for, by The Great Place to Work® Institute, featured as a leader in the Specialized Insights Service Providers Wave™ 2020, Customer Analytics Service Providers Wave™ 2019 by Forrester Research, and recognized as an "Honorable Vendor" in 2020 magic quadrant for data & analytics by Gartner. For more information visit fractal.ai

SOURCE Fractal

PM Modi to Inaugurate RAISE 2020 - A Global Virtual Summit on Artificial Intelligence Organized from 5-9 Oct'2020

• PM Shri Narendra Modi to inaugurate the summit on October 5
• On the strength of its data and innovation prowess, India can become the AI laboratory of the world, delivering intuitive solutions to a wide range of societal issues : Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog
• RAISE 2020 will serve as a starting point for India to become a data-driven society that leverages AI for social good: Shri Ajay Prakash Sawhney, Secretary, MEITY
• So far, more than 38,700 stakeholders from academia, the research industry and government representatives from 125 countries have registered to participate in RAISE 2020
• Global AI Experts to deliberate upon themes like role of AI in empowering 1 billion plus Indians, importance of responsible AI in ecosystem development, need for greater collaboration in AI and the significance of data
• Summit to feature 44 sessions over five days

Ministry of Electronics and Information technology ( MEITY) unveiled today RAISE 2020 – a Global Virtual Summit on Artificial Intelligence (AI) in a press conference organised in Electronics Niketan, New Delhi. The MEITY and NITI Aayog are organising the Mega Virtual Summit AI, RAISE 2020- ‘Responsible AI for Social Empowerment 2020,’ from October 5-9, 2020. The summit, which will be inaugurated by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, will witness participation from global experts in the field.

The aim of the summit is to kick-start discussion on the creation of robust AI-powered public infrastructure that benefits all, not just in India but across the world. India, one of the founding members of the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence, aims to implement AI-based solutions not just domestically but in countries around the world so that these lead to widespread social empowerment and prosperity. #AIForAll is at the core of India’s AI strategy and the focus is to build responsible AI for social empowerment, transformation and inclusion.

Over the course of the five-day summit, several leading AI experts from across the world will deliberate over topics of vital importance like strategies for using AI for social benefit, the importance of creating reliable AI infrastructure and the transformative effect of AI in empowering communities.

Among the experts participating in the summit will be Professor Daniela Rus, Director of Computer Science and AI lab at MIT, USA, Dr. Milind Tambe, Director, AI for Social Good at Google Research India, Mr. Sandip Patel, MD, IBM India and South Asia, Dr. Jonathan Stuart Russel, Computer Scientist, UC Berkeley, and Ms. Arunima Sarkar, Lead, AI, World Economic Forum, among others.

Speaking at the press conference to unveil the summit, Shri Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog said, “We firmly believe that AI can help transform lives. India is developing AI-based solutions for social empowerment across spheres like healthcare, education, finance, agriculture and governance. On the strength of its data and innovation prowess, India can become the AI laboratory of the world, delivering intuitive solutions to a wide range of societal issues.”

Shri Ajay Prakash Sawhney, Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and IT said, “India has the talent and the institutional capacity to build an AI-ready workforce that innovates and delivers solutions to solve societal issues. We are taking steps to promote the development and integration of AI into important spheres of life, in order to improve the ease of living and overall quality of life. RAISE 2020 will serve as a starting point for India to become a data-driven society that leverages AI for social good.”

So far, more than 38,700 stakeholders from academia, the research industry and government representatives from 125 countries have registered to participate in RAISE 2020. An AI innovation contest titled Atma Nirbhar Bharat: AI Challenge and Pitch Fest was organized in the run up to RAISE 2020. The contest, which started on September 14 and ended on September 25, invited solutions to issues in the areas like healthcare, education, agriculture, smart mobility and natural language processing. Fifteen top AI solutions were selected by a jury, and will be awarded INR 20 lakh each on October 9.

From agriculture to fin-tech and healthcare to infrastructure, India is at the cusp of rapid development in artificial intelligence. India can become the AI laboratory of the world and contribute to inclusive development and growth through empowerment. Details of RAISE 2020 Summit have been made live at http://raise2020.indiaai.gov.in/. The summit will serve as a platform for discussion and consensus building to help create a data-rich environment, which will aid in, eventually, transforming lives globally.

About RAISE 2020:

RAISE 2020 is a first-of-its-kind global meeting of minds on Artificial Intelligence to drive India's vision and roadmap for social transformation, inclusion and empowerment through responsible AI. Organized by Government of India along with Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and NITI Aayog,the event will witness robust participation from global industry leaders, key opinion makers, Government representatives and academia.

Website:http://raise2020.indiaai.gov.in/

Experts from MIT, Google India, IBM India/South Asia to Participate on Day-3 of RAISE 2020 - Responsible AI for Social Empowerment

The RAISE-2020 Summit, which will be inaugurated by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, will witness experts like Professor Daniela Rus, Director of Computer Science and AI lab at MIT, USA, Dr. Milind Tambe, Director, AI for Social Good at Google Research India, Mr. Sandip Patel, MD, IBM India and South Asia, Dr. Jonathan Stuart Russel, Computer Scientist, UC Berkeley, and Ms. Arunima Sarkar, Lead, AI, World Economic Forum, among others, participating on October 7, the third day of the Summit. Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and NITI Aayog are organizing a Global Virtual Summit on Artificial Intelligence (AI), RAISE 2020- ‘Responsible AI for Social Empowerment 2020,’ from October 5-9, 2020.

Professor Rus will talk about the vision of Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence, which India joined as a founder member in June 2020, along with the UK, USA, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Japan, New Zealand, Korea and Singapore. She will be joined in this session by Dr. Russel and Ms. Sarkar, along with Mr. Umakant Soni, Co-founder, AI Foundry.

Dr. Rohini Srivathsa, National Technology Officer, Microsoft, will address a session on building skills for an AI-ready workforce, where she will be joined by Ms. Laura Longcore, VP, Worldwide Learning Field and Ms. Kirti Seth, Lead, Future Skills, NASSCOM.

Dr. Milind Tambe will address a session on the need for research into building responsible AI.Mr. Sandip Patel will headline a session on the challenges and opportunities of harnessing AI for Growth, where he will be joined by Mr. Ranjan Sharma, CIO, Supply Chain and E-Commerce, Bestseller India, Mr. Tarun Aggarwal, AVP, Maruti Suzuki India, Mr. Arvind Sivaramakrishnan, CIO, Apollo Hospitals, Mr. Anup Mahapatra, Deputy MD, State Bank of India, Ms. Lula Mohanty, GM, IBM Global Business Services, and Ms. Shalini Warrier, ED, COO, and Business Head - Retail, Federal Bank.

The day will also witness a fireside chat between R.S. Sharma, Chairman, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India and R. Chandrashekhar, Chairperson, Centre for The Digital Future, on the need of keeping humans at the center while devising AI solutions.

There will be a special session titled AI Research – Lab to Market, which will be addressed by Professor Vijay Raghavan, Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India. The session will also be attended by Dr. Sriram Rajamani, MD, Microsoft Research India, and Professor Narendra Ahuja, Research Professor, UIUC, USA.

Dr. Sunil Wadhwani, Founder-Donor, WISH Foundation and Wadhwani AI, will address a session on new age of connected healthcare and the importance of delivering last mile access to healthcare.

He will be joined by Dr. Amandeep Gill, CEO and Project Director, International Digital Health & AI Research Collaborative (I-DAIR), Dr. Indu Bhushan, CEO, National Health Authority and Dr. Sanjay Padhi, Head of AWS Research.

Ms. Arati Deo, MD, Accenture Rechnology Centre in India, and Dr. Rushi Bhatt, Head of AI at LinkedIn will participate in a session on Explainable AI, post which, Professor Kaushik Roy from Purdue University will hold a talk on brain inspired AI.

So far, more than 35,034 stakeholders from academia, research industry and government representatives from 123 countries have registered to participate in RAISE 2020.

From agriculture to fin-tech and healthcare to infrastructure, India is at the cusp of rapid development in artificial intelligence. India can become the AI laboratory of the world and contribute to inclusive development and growth through empowerment. The RAISE 2020 Summit (http://raise2020.indiaai.gov.in/) will serve as a platform for discussion and consensus building to help create a data-rich environment, which will help to eventually transform lives globally.

About RAISE 2020:

RAISE 2020 is a first of its kind, global meeting of minds on Artificial Intelligence to drive India's vision and roadmap for social transformation, inclusion and empowerment through responsible AI. Organized by Government of India along with Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and NITI Aayog,the event will witness robust participation from global industry leaders, key opinion makers, Government representatives and academia.

Website:http://raise2020.indiaai.gov.in/

EnableX.io introduces FaceAI - Face Analysis and Emotion Recognition AI to deliver Business Intelligence

EnableX.io, Asia’s leading cloud communication platform provider, today announced the launch of its Face Analysis and Emotion Recognition AI solution - FaceAI. Aimed at augmenting live video with Cognitive and Emotional States understanding, FaceAI enables companies with deep insights into the emotional impact of each conversation, providing smarter, more contextual and dynamic customer engagements.

Encompassing advanced technologies, FaceAI has the ability to identify demographic features such as the Likely Gender and Age; facial features such as Hair Colour, Cheekbone, eyes; and emotions such as Anger, Disgust, Fear, Happiness, Sadness, Empathy, Surprise, and much more. Besides these, it also measures the attentiveness and liveness of the person which can be helpful in developing a deeper understanding of the customer or caller’s sentiments and affective state. 

Pankaj Gupta, CEO & Founder, EnableX.io stated, “Next generation communications should be more flexible, smart and personal. With the whole new set of Emotion Intelligence capabilities, EnableX.io equips partners and customers across industries and domains with AI-enabled communication APIs that facilitate intelligent data-driven conversations, helping them stay ahead of the curve."

Businesses can use EnableX FaceAI separately or paired with EnableX Video call in several ways such as verifying the identity of bank users over AI-enabled video, displaying targeted advertisements through “smart kiosks”, understanding student’s engagement level in elearning, and much more. In the case of large-scale video calls, FaceAI effectively measures facial expressions and emotions of all the faces within the call in real time.

“EnableX has a strong reputation in the CPaaS space, especially when it comes to next-generation video APIs. By adding FaceAI into our portfolio, we are not only helping people connect, but taking communication to the next level by creating meaningful and memorable customer journeys. Historically, AI focuses on intelligence in improving processes and automation and is not focused on correlating events with human emotions or emotional factors. Now, with FaceAI, we are adding an EQ to technology’s IQ. Using Affective Computing technology, we will be able to recognise the emotional state and the context of every conversation, equipping organisations to respond in a more contextual and accurate way.” said Pankaj.

With FaceAI, businesses and developers can easily integrate emotional intelligence into any application, website and digital displays using the AI HTML5 browser-side SDK. Ensuring GDPR compliance, all the AI processing is done on the device with no personal data, images, or videos shared with the centralised EnableX.io server.

There are varied interesting use-cases where FaceAI coupled with Live Video will bring substantial benefits for businesses in a highly customer-centric environment.

• Education: Ensuring the integrity of online learning, it helps detect the attentiveness and liveliness of the students. Facial Recognition also helps authenticate and verify the identity of individual students. Emotion analysis, on the other hand, helps instructors understand students better so that they can tailor their teaching approaches to levels of student interest, and to address areas of concern, confusion and apathy from students. 

• eKYC: Financial institutions can automate the process of KYC and save time with the help of AI. FaceAI helps ensure the authenticity of the customers when doing digital onboarding by adding an additional layer of security. By detecting and evaluating face and facial features, head poses, eye gaze, emotions and much more, FaceAI helps thwart fraudsters.
  
  

• Retail: With EnableX FaceAI, brands can provide live video-stream shopping and use emotions data captured from Facial Analysis and Emotion Recognition AI to offer the right solutions and products to the right customers. Marketers, on the other hand, can test the success of the marketing campaigns and Ads by measuring their emotional responses. 

• Customer Service: For any business, Facial Recognition and emotion analysis could help the customer service agent to resolve customer queries and anguish more efficiently and carefully and escalate it to senior supervisors before the situation gets out of hand and affects brand image. 

• HR & Recruitment: The technology can be used to assess job candidates and can also help in understanding employee's feelings and emotions better so that their experience could be enhanced and issues could be resolved on time. 

About EnableX.io

EnableX.io, a product of vCloudx, is a communication platform for integrating real-time communication into applications and websites. The scalable and secure global platform provides developers and service providers with powerful APIs to create video, voice and messaging conversations with ease. From one-to-one chats to large scale broadcasts, EnableX.io makes communications more flexible and personal, helping enterprises stay ahead in the digital world.

Founded in 2017 and headquartered in Singapore, EnableX.io has established a strong foothold in APAC countries. Backed by a team of 50+ passionate technologists, it constantly challenges the status quo to empower Fortune 500 companies as well as start-ups across the globe with its highly interactive and powerfully engaging customer experience platform.

In the wake of the growing demand for remote communication services globally, the company in March 2020, forayed into the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) space by developing a state-of-the-art Video Conferencing Solution. With this, EnableX.io became one of the few global players with a complete suite of services ranging from Communication Platform-as-a-Service (CPaaS) to Video Communication Software-as-a-Service.

Wipro Study Finds 95% Business Leaders Consider AI Critical, Yet Only 17% Leverage it Across the Organization

Wipro Limited (NYSE: WIT, BSE: 507685, NSE: WIPRO), a leading global information technology, consulting and business process services company, today launched the ‘State of Intelligent Enterprises’ report. The study emphasizes that enterprises of the future will be built on a foundation of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Analytics, Machine Learning, Deep Learning and Automation, that are central to solving business problems and driving innovation. Most businesses consider AI to be critical to improve operational efficiency, reduce employee time on manual tasks, and enhance the employee and customer experience.

The ‘State of Intelligent Enterprises’ report examines the current landscape and shows the challenges and the driving factors for businesses to become truly Intelligent Enterprises. Wipro surveyed 300 respondents in UK and US across key industry sectors like financial services, healthcare, technology, manufacturing, retail and consumer goods. The report highlights that while collecting data is critical, the ability to combine this with a host of technologies to leverage insights creates an Intelligent Enterprise. Organizations that fast-track adoption of intelligent processes and technologies stand to gain an immediate competitive advantage over their counterparts.

Some of the key findings from the report are:

• While 80% of organizations recognize the importance of being intelligent, only 17% would classify their organizations as an Intelligent Enterprise.


• 98% of those surveyed believe that being an Intelligent Enterprise yields benefits to organizations. The most important ones being improved customer experience, faster business decisions and increased organizational agility.


• 91% of organizations feel there are data barriers towards being an Intelligent Enterprise, with security, quality and seamless integration being of utmost concern.


• 95% of business leaders surveyed see AI as critical to being Intelligent Enterprises, yet, currently, only 17% can leverage AI across the entire organization.


• 74% of organizations consider investment in technology as the most likely enabler for an Intelligent Enterprise, however 42% of them think that this must be complemented with efforts to re-skill workforce.

Jayant Prabhu, Vice President & Head - Data, Analytics & AI, Wipro Limited said, “Organisations now need new capabilities to navigate the current challenges. The report amplifies the opportunity to gain a first-mover advantage to being Intelligent. The ability to take productive decisions depends on an organization’s ability to generate accurate, fast and actionable intelligence. Successful organisations are those that quickly adapt to the new technology landscape to transform into an Intelligent Enterprise.”

Download the full report from here

Kent RO Extends Artificial Intelligence Product Portfolio

Launches Touchless Face Attendance System toEnhance Employee safety post COVID-19

In wake of COVID-19 outbreak, KENT RO Systems Limited, the most trusted water purifying brand, has announced yet another breakthrough product- KENTCamAttendance,a Next-GenTouchless Attendance System based on FacialRecognition. The new innovation of KENT is the extension of AI product portfolio which was launched last year with KENTCamEye.

KENT CamAttendance  Features:   - AI Face Recognition: AI based computer vision for face detection & face recognition   -Mask compliance: Inbuilt algorithm for optional mask detection   -Real Person Detection: Patented algorithm to differentiate between real person & a HD photo/video   -High Accuracy & Speed: Face Recognition takes less than a second with an accuracy of >99.9%   -Smart Alerts: System alerts in cases of anomalies like employee not wearing a mask etc.

Post COVID-19, managing employee attendance system has become a nightmare for the industry as the use existing biometric attendance machines has been prohibited. With no other reliable attendance capturing mechanism, the industry has switched back to manual attendance which is error prone and difficult to manage. The helpless situation is not only a problem for HR managers, but for employees too as they are still being forced to use biometric machines in many places.

To fill this lag, KENT has stepped forward with its Next-Gen Touchless Attendance based on Facial Recognition. It uses AI based computer vision to capture and recognize the face of an employee for attendance purpose. It is managed via a secure cloud application that stores employee records and employee photos anddata which can be seamlessly integrated with existing HRMS. It is a faster and more reliable system than the manual attendance. Most importantly, the product is designed and manufactured in India with data &servers also residing in India.

Kent CamAttendance launched by Dr. Mahesh Gupta. CMD & Mr. Varun Gupta, Director Kent RO Systems Ltd (2)

Furthermore, multiple KENT CamAttendance devices can be deployed in one premises and across different sites. All CamAttendance devices can be controlled centrally from the cloud and data from all CamAttendance devices also comes to the cloud in real-time. Company HR can view all data from the cloud and generate employee attendance.

Employees and supervisors can use the optional mobile app for added functionalities such as check-in via mobile, which allows one to mark attendance through mobile via face recognition and/or geo location. The mobile feature also offers leave application, attendance regularization and approval. Furthermore, with the help of the team view functionality,one can check attendance of team members through a consolidated view including their physical locations on a map.

Commenting on the new KENT CamAttendance solution, Mr. Mahesh Gupta, CMD, Kent RO Systems Ltd. said, “This new product is in sync with our philosophy to ensure the well-being of people.  We believe that safety should never be compromised. The pandemic triggered us to come up with this product. We are confident and excited to bring to market a much-needed product that improves employee confidence & safety in these pressing times.

This unique and a revolutionary solution will help to capture & manage attendance without risking infection via surface transmission. KENT CamAttendance is touchless attendance system which uses facial recognition and Artificial Intelligence to completely eliminate the need of tactile interaction as experienced in biometric or manual systems.”  

“This product is a result of extensive R&D and has been completely designed and developed in India.” he further added.

The KENT CamAttendance system has been priced competitively at INR 25,000 + taxes. A nominal annual fee is also payable for using the cloud platform.

KENT has roped in Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan as the brand ambassador for KENT CamAttendance. King Khan is also the ambassador of KENT CamEye launched last year - Next-Gen Car Camera that ensures 100% Security for your family and your Car.

MCS Enters the $100 Mn Indian AI automation market with Silicon Valley based Auditoria.AI

AUDITORIA.AI, provider of AI-driven automation solutions for corporate finance teams, and MCS Group,  a multifunctional professional service group rendering range of value-added services, announced a partnership that will deliver AI-based finance automation to Indian Corporates.  With this new agreement, several of MCS Group customers specifically in India will be able to leverage cutting edge artificial intelligence to automate routine repetitive business processes that otherwise take days or weeks, while accelerating surgical financial insights that improve visibility and decision making. 

The enterprise AI market India is estimated to be at $100 million, growing at 200-250% CAGR, according to recent research and market reports.

Automation is the need of the hour, and is something that India's vast SME sector needs to adopt in order to avoid inefficiencies and improve their productivity. Business owners now need to start looking at technology as a boon, which can take care of the processes, and allow them to focus on their customers, on their revenues and on their business growth. And in order to do that, one need systems which are fast and systems which are simple. To fill this gap, MCS will help MSMEs and large corporates to define and achieve their financial goals with AI driven automation.

“We are very pleased to partner globally with MCS Group,” said Rohit Gupta, Auditoria’s CEO and Co-Founder. “The Group’s impeccable reputation and long history of providing innovative solutions will be a key asset as we streamline and automate critical processes in the finance back office.”

“Throughout our group’s history, we have striven to deliver the highest quality of service and the best technical solutions to our clients,” said Abhay Mehta, Senior Partner at MCS. “Auditoria brings an incredibly compelling array of AI-driven automation solutions that will delight our customers, and corporate finance teams, at large. In particular, we are excited to bring Auditoria’s innovative technologies including Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing and more to our clients, thereby helping them accelerate their digital transformation initiatives, and bring greater efficiencies and productivity to the back office function.” said Chetan Shah, Senior Partner at MCS.

Auditoria SmartFlow Skills offers a reliable alternative to traditional approaches to execute typical finance back-office processes, which result in significantly improved business resiliency. Using natural language-driven configurations, Auditoria SmartFlow Skills ephemerally automates mission-critical finance business processes, while querying and reconciling data into financial systems of record.

Additionally, SmartFlow Skills includes modern machine learning algorithms to drive statistical and predictive analytics, allowing companies to have rapid access to key financial indicators, higher accuracy and precision in predictive recommendations, and being continuously audit-ready while mitigating risks, eliminating errors, and reducing accounting infractions. 

Auditoria SmartFlow Skills is generally available for companies in India, Singapore and the Middle East through MCS Group.

About MCS Group

MCS Group entity is a multifunctional professional service firm rendering a range of value-added services since 1963. The firm takes pride in its ability to consistently deliver solutions that are technically sound, innovative and utilitarian for its clients. The strongest testament to the firm’s reputation and services are its highly satisfied client base in various fields with relationships extending over five decades. Next Level Advisory Service LLP will be the Group’s entity that will spearhead Auditoria’s entry into India.

Learn more about Next Level by visiting www.nextleveladvisory.net

About Auditoria

Auditoria is an AI-driven SaaS automation company for corporate finance that automates back-office business processes, like tasks, analytics, and responses. By leveraging natural language processing, artificial intelligence, and machine learning, Auditoria’s platform removes friction and repetition from mundane tasks while also automating complex functions, such as predictive analytics. Corporate finance and accounting teams use Auditoria to accelerate business value while minimizing heavy IT involvement, improve business resilience, lower attrition, and perform higher-level business functions. Give your finance teams superpowers at Auditoria.ai.

India's 10 Best AI Startups to Look for in 2021

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the new normal in every industry these days and every market niche is fast adopting it. Whether it is healthcare or retail, fashion, manufacturing or even banking, all are ready to use AI to innovate new ways of business all along making their customers experience memorable.

Going forward, AI is becoming the new necessary technology to survive in the market. From supporting smart infrastructure to helping to be more efficient with our natural resources and smart agriculture to feed a growing population, the need of every business of all industries to make services user friendly has created a positive environment for AI startups. Chat robots, conversational robots, smart cars, video games, Siri, Google Now etc. all are few examples of AI technology. AI has also started to touch the new segments like HR and recruitment and seen increased investor  and tech giants interest who has been coming ahead to support startups in this area for fueling the growth of overall industry.  

Let’s take a look of ‘Top Artificial Intelligence Start-ups’ in India.

1.  AIndra Systems (http://www.aindra.in/ )

Aindra Systems is a leading Artificial Intelligence technology based startup which is well known for developing an affordable device that help in detection and screening of cervical cancer. Founded in 2012, Aindra Systems headquarters in Bangalore, Karnataka. Its patent-pending Face-Recognition (FR) technology is powering a Smartphone based product, which is helping in improving and enhancing the productivity of different programmes used in service segment. 

This startup is a brainchild of Adarsh Natarajan, an IIM Bangalore graduate who is committed to deliver various technology solutions to improve productivity and governance of different services in remote locations.  The tech products developed by this platform work with laptops, desktops with webcam, smart phones, tablets, etc. to validate the users identity for receiving any service on the basis of ID cards issued by the Government. The startup helps to identifying people through their biological specimens, demographics, objects and gestures etc. The startup has secured an undisclosed amount of funding in 2014 from Villgro, a social enterprise incubator focused on funding startups having a social impact.

2. Arya.ai (https://phrazor.ai/)

Arya.ai is simplifying the process of building “AI” technology! It develops tools to make the complex process of building of new Intelligent Systems simple. The startup was founded in 2013 with an aim to create new ‘intelligent’ technology that can solve complex problems easily and at a much faster speed.

The idea behind this startup was of Vinay Kumar Sankarapu and Deekshith Marla who are IIT Bombay researchers and enthusiastic to make intelligent machines that can help human beings in making fast decisions at professional end. The tools provided by Arya.ai helps other AI technology developers to build their own AI systems. This startup secured US$750,000 funding amount in pre-series A round from YourNest Angel fund and VentureNursery, an angels backed accelerator. 

3. Brainasoft (https://www.brainasoft.com/ )

Brainasoft founded in 2010 is the next name in our list of startups that are into this trendy tussle! The startup is developing AI solutions like machine learning, language processing and human-computer interface. Akash Shastri, Founder, Brainasoft has started this company alone and worked single-handedly till 2015. The TechRadar has selected its flagship software ‘Braina Virtual Assistant’ as one of the Top 10 Best Software 2015.  Braina can do speech to text dictation in third party software and can play songs and videos online from local stores.

The startup is currently developing next generation technology software like Graphical Command Line Interface (GCLI), Human Language Interface (HLI), and Human Language Programming (HLP) etc. to make different operations quick and easy. Its ‘Inforobo’ product allows users to develop their own AI virtual assistant easily.  

4. Morph.ai (https://morph.ai/ )

Morph.ai is committed to cater the needs of bot makers. It is a B2B platform where small enterprises can build their own conversational services to set out them on available channels including facebook, twitter, SMS, live-chat, in-app chat etc. to stay connected with the customers through personal engagement. Businesses can send messages to give their customers personalized experiences and transform them into business lead.  The startup company was co-founded by Pratik Jain and three others in 2016 in Gurgaon this year only. 

5. Mad Street Den (http://vue.ai/ )

Next name in the list is Mad Street Den! Founded by Anand Chandrasekaran and Ashwani Asokan in early 2014, this startup is registered in the U.S. but mainly based in Chennai. It was working to develop technologies that can add convenience in e-commerce business and aims to revolutionizing the industry by providing personalized shopping experiences to the customers. Its retail vertical Vue.ai is helping in increasing businesses of online retailers around the world. It identifies customers’ preferences of colours, style, pattern and texture etc. and drives product discovery accordingly. It helps online retailers to add in conversions whereas for customers point, it helps in product discovery. The startup has raised its Series-A funding from Sequoia India and other existing investors together with growX Ventures and Exfinity Ventures. 

6. Niki.ai (https://niki.ai/ )

Niki.ai is providing new generation online shopping experience. It was founded by four friends who are IIT-Kharagpur alumni in April 2015! The founding team that includes Keshav Prawasi, Jaiswal, Nitin Babel and Shishir Modi started working on this idea in Udaipur and soon moved to Bangalore. Niki.ai app help in different tasks including cab bookings, mobile recharge and lots other in a simple way. It helps users to complete online purchase easily through an AI-powered bot which is a chat interface. With this chat interface, retailers need not to use multiple apps for making end-to-end bookings possible. It also recommends personalized services to the users that suit them best. Users can discover, choose, and make payment to complete their order through this chat interface only. Niki.ai is backed by Ratan Tata and aims to be a one stop destination for all online purchasing. 

7. SigTuple (https://www.sigtuple.com/ )

SigTuple is another AI startup which is focusing primarily in healthcare segment and helping doctors by mechanizing disease diagnosis and screening for better solution. The company was started by Apurv Anand, Tathagato Rai Dastidar and Rohit Kumar Pandey in 2015.

Based in Bengaluru, SigTuple built an algorithm that can be applied in medical data through a cloud based intelligent platform which is low cost and trustworthy too.  This system helps in improving the accuracy of diagnosis with standardized methods. This startup has received seed investment from a group of prominent investors including Venture Capital firm Accel Partners, Flipkart founders Sachin & Binny Bansal,  and other angel investors.

8. Skedool (https://www.myally.ai/ )

My Ally which is formerly known as Skedool.it is currently working in the area of scheduling. The startup was founded in 2015 by Naveen Verma and Deepti Yenireddy with an aim to make major changes in virtual assistant and scheduling. Skedool is a unify tool of AI and human intelligence that can help in handling everyday B2B tasks of different departments including sales and recruitments.  It can be integrated easily with all leading CRM, recruitments’ and marketing tools.  The startup has also raised undisclosed funding amount in 1^st round from four investors. 

9. vPhrase (https://www.vphrase.com/ )

Mumbai-based vPhrase Analytics gets an undisclosed seed funding from Venture Catalysts in March 2016. “Phrazor” is vPhrase patented platform that drives insights and afterward communicates those insights. It helps in developing internal reports easily to examine employees’ performance. It also find out important points that need attention for improvements. Enterprises need to spend less time and efforts to make their performance better. It has raised seed funding from angel investors Apoorv Ranjan, and Daud Ali from Venture Catalysts.

10. Staqu Technologies (http://www.staqu.com/ )

Staqu Technologies is providing intelligent systems like image understanding, biometrics, visual automation systems, data driven analytics for different industries since 2015. It is headquarters in Delhi and working with AI technology experts and researchers together to develop smart next generation state-of-the-art solutions. Its flagship product the ‘VGrep Suite’ features automated attribute generation, similar products recommendations, visual search, fashion trend analysis etc to solve and cater the needs of online businesses and the consumers alike.

Artifacia (https://www.welcome.ai/artifacia) 

Artifacia introduced by Snapshor after spending two years in the market is another name among Indian startups that are experimenting in AI space and gaining attention worldwide. Artifacia is a visual discovery platform that works for online retailers and brands. It helps them to inspire their customers with relevant products at the product finding time. The company has built advanced visual search and image recognition tools which are powered by state-of-the-art AI technology. In January 2016, this startup secured an undisclosed amount in angel funding successfully led by former Flipkart CTO Amod Malviya. 

In order to make big in AI, Fluid AI (http://fluid.ai/ ) and many others are also bringing a wide range of new AI tools for small businesses’ benefits. Fluid AI is known for providing AI analytical tools for corporate, banks and other industries globally for solving complex problems smartly! Two brothers Raghav Aggarwal (IIM Ahmedabad dropped out) and Abhinav Aggarwal (ISB dropped out) started this company in 2013. Headquarters in Mumbai, this startup is providing other enterprises with better data analytics. 

We hope you are feeling inspired with the list! Definitely AI is a new trending opportunity to make big with a unique idea and working around it. If you know any other company from the same segment, please mention about it in the comments.