## Unlocking India’s Potential with AI

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**Canonical URL:** [Unlocking India’s Potential with AI](https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2023/december/pov-nilekani.pdf)

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### India needs it
- India’s population: 1.4 billion.
- Population comparison: "almost twice that of Europe."
- Average age: 28 in India, 44 in Europe.
- Demographic implication: higher share of working-age population.
- India’s unique challenges and needs focus AI on practical problems in health care, education, agriculture, and sustainability rather than solely on cutting-edge technology.
- Linguistic diversity:
  - 19,500 dialects spoken by at least 10,000 people.
  - Two Indians selected at random have only a 36 percent chance of speaking a common language.
- Literacy and access:
  - Official literacy rate near 77 percent.
  - "Roughly 1 in 4 people can’t read or write."
  - Barriers to welfare access: illiteracy, difficulty filling forms, dependence on intermediaries who may be misinformed or corrupt.
- Opportunity: AI can bridge access gaps by enabling direct voice-based access to services using natural language.

### India is ready for it
- Mobile and internet connectivity:
  - More than 790 million mobile broadband users.
  - Internet penetration continuing to increase; availability of affordable data plans.
- Digital public infrastructure:
  - Aadhaar: a 12-digit unique identity number with optional digital authentication.
  - Unified Payments Interface (UPI):
    - Handles more than 10 billion transactions a month.
    - "It is the largest real-time payment system in the world and handles at nearly $250 billion a year."
    - Handles about 60 percent of real-time payment transactions worldwide.
- Developer and tech ecosystem:
  - "Next to those from the US, the largest number of developers on GitHub... are from India."
  - Booming IT exports and a dynamic start-up ecosystem that both innovates and adopts digital public infrastructure.
- AI in education:
  - AI positioned to help close the literacy gap by supporting learning in native languages and English.
  - AI can reduce administrative burdens on teachers, enabling deeper human-centered teaching.

### India will do it
- Government and public-sector adoption:
  - PM-Kisan program context:
    - PM-Kisan initiated in 2019 to extend financial help to farmers who own their own land.
  - PM-Kisan chatbot:
    - Launched in September 2023 in collaboration with the EkStep foundation.
    - Enables farmers to check eligibility, application status, and payments using voice.
    - On launch day more than 500,000 users chatted with the bot.
    - Features released slowly to ensure a safe and risk-managed rollout.
- Example of open-network digital public infrastructure:
  - Namma Yatri ride-hailing network:
    - Launched November 2022 in collaboration with the union of auto-rickshaw drivers in Bangalore.
    - Drivers use their own app with a flat fee, no percentage commission, and no middleman.
    - Facilitated close to 90,000 rides a day, "almost as many as ride-hailing companies in the city."
- Strategic focus recommended:
  - Prioritize problems people face that existing technology has been unable to solve rather than focusing on technology first.
  - People+AI mission: human-centered AI development (EkStep’s People+AI).
  - Build AI-first systems from the ground up where possible, leveraging India’s tabula rasa and rapid adoption of digital public infrastructure.
- Anticipated outcome:
  - India positioned to be "the world’s most extensive user of AI by the end of this decade."
  - Potential to deeply penetrate Indian society across education, social protection programs, and public services, effecting broad and meaningful change.

*Point of View by Nandan Nilekani and Tanuj Bhojwani (DECEMBER 2023)*

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_Source: https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2023/december/pov-nilekani.pdf_