The central government has reportedly sought proposals from academic institutions and research organisations to build indigenously developed “tools and frameworks” that advocate for artificial intelligence’s fair and ethical advancement. 

These tools will address various themes, including machine unlearning, synthetic data generation, fairness tools, bias mitigating strategies and others, ET reported.

For instance, one of the tools focuses on machine unlearning, aiming to rectify inaccuracies, biases, and outdated information that may unintentionally become embedded in machine learning models.

“By facilitating the removal of undesirable learned behaviours, machine unlearning algorithms contribute to the development of more accurate, reliable, and fair AI systems across diverse domains,” the proposal document read as cited by ET.

The proposal also seeks the development of tools and frameworks for synthetic data generation, ensuring algorithmic fairness, mitigating bias, fostering ethical AI practices and conducting governance testing. The emphasis is on addressing data gaps, alleviating privacy concerns and promoting fair and inclusive representation.

Government-run institutions, including Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), National Institute of Technology (NIT) Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIIT), along with R&D and private academic organisations possessing pre-existing lab infrastructure, workstations, servers and dedicated staff, are eligible to apply. 

However, these institutions must justify completing the project within the next two years and align it with the overarching objective of promoting fair and ethical AI utilisation. The deadline for submitting proposals to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology is January 12.

The development comes at a time when generative AI has taken the world by storm following the launch of ChatGPT. Over the last year or so, a number of Indian startups have also started leveraging the technology to improve their offerings and user experience.

Most recently, Ola boss Bhavish Aggarwal unveiled AI models of his new startup Krutrim AI. He called the startup’s offerings “India’s first full-stack AI”.

The Centre and state governments are also looking to use AI for various use cases. The Uttar Pradesh government is planning to build India’s first AI city in Lucknow to house and promote the AI ecosystem.

As per Inc42 data, India is home to more than 70 GenAI startups that have raised capital in excess of $440 Mn between 2019 and Q3 2023. The homegrown GenAI market is expected to grow to a market size of $17 Bn by 2030 from $1.1 Bn in 2023.