IBM, MeitY sign MoUs to advance innovation in AI, semiconductor and quantum innovation in India – BusinessToday
US-headquartered IBM has signed memoranda of understanding (MoUs) with entities within the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to accelerate innovation in AI, semiconductor and quantum technology for India. The aim is to accelerate India’s comprehensive strategy for AI, strengthen efforts to be self-reliant in semiconductors and advance its National Quantum Mission. These MoUs have been signed between IBM and MeitY’s INDIAai, India Semiconductor Mission (ISM) and Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC).
Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Union Minister of State for Skill Development & Entrepreneurship and Electronics & IT, said, “Semiconductors, AI, and quantum, these three technologies will transform the future in the coming years. They represent tremendous opportunities for our academic institutions, start-ups, and innovation ecosystem. The broader opportunity lies in creating a global standard talent pool in India, capable of taking advantage of the opportunities in quantum computing, AI, and semiconductors.”
These MoUs will help MeitY access IBM’s expertise to build and advance India’s competency and scale its growth mission in the AI, semiconductor and quantum industries. “This collaboration reinforces our commitment to be the trusted partner for India in enhancing its innovation capabilities. Supporting the government’s efforts in building infrastructure, enhancing human capital and knowledge creation in these three areas of technology will be integral to India’s digital transformation and economic growth,” said Sandip Patel, Managing Director, IBM India & South Asia.
IBM would be a knowledge partner of India Semiconductor Mission (ISM) for a semiconductor research centre, and may share its experience on intellectual property, tools, initiatives, and skills development, aimed at promoting innovation in semiconductor technologies such as logic, advanced packaging and heterogeneous integration, and advanced chip design technologies, using modernised infrastructure.
For the MoU with C-DAC, the two will explore opportunities to work together to advance India’s National Quantum Mission by building competency in quantum computing technology, applications in areas of national interest, and a skilled quantum workforce. Activities would broadly focus on: workforce enablement; development of industries and start-ups; R&D; and quantum services and infrastructure.
Lastly, under the MoU with INDIAai, the Digital India Corporation intends to collaborate to establish a world-class national AI Innovation Platform (AIIP) for India that will focus on AI skilling, ecosystem development, and integrating advanced foundation models and generative AI capabilities to support India’s scientific, commercial, and human-capital development in this technology. AIIP will serve as an accelerator for incubation and competency development in AI technologies and their applications for use cases of national importance. AIIP would have access to relevant capabilities of IBM’s watsonx platform including the ability to use models in language, code and geospatial science with the intent to train models for other domains as needed.