AIIMS and IITs lead AI-CoEs to develop structured AI datasets in agriculture and healthcare sectors

The Ministry of Education has selected four premier institutes to spearhead India’s AI Centers of Excellence (CoEs). AIIMS Delhi, IIT Delhi, IIT Kanpur and IIT Ropar have been chosen to lead the CoEs in AI with an emphasis on health, sustainable cities and agriculture, respectively, agriculture minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan informed Parliament recently. By bringing together premier research institutions, industry leaders, and government bodies, the CoEs aim to bridge the gap between academia and industry, ensuring that research is not just theoretical but translates into real-world solutions.

 

Seamless industry integration, availability of high-quality annotated datasets, scalability of AI solutions for diverse Indian contexts, and regulatory concerns surrounding AI ethics and data privacy are some of the issues that the CoE will address. Ensuring that research does not remain confined to academic outputs but translates into real-world impact is one of the key hurdles. Additionally, the AI sector in India is still evolving, and the lack of structured AI datasets in areas like agriculture and healthcare poses a challenge for model training and deployment. Another critical issue is ensuring that AI solutions are accessible to all, including small-scale farmers and urban planners in tier-2 and tier-3 cities.

“The focus areas of the CoEs include disease detection and healthcare advancements, precision farming techniques for improved agricultural productivity, and AI-powered smart city solutions for urban sustainability. By creating scalable AI models, the initiative seeks to integrate these technologies with national programmes, ensuring large-scale deployment and impact,” says Prof Manoj Gaur, director, IIT Jammu and Principal Investigator (PI) of this initiative which has been allocated a total financial outlay of Rs 990 crore over a period starting from 2023-24 to 2027-28 as part of the government's ‘Make AI in India and make AI work for India’ vision.


Since the initiative directly supports the ‘Make AI in India’ vision, it will focus on the development of indigenous AI technologies rather than relying on foreign solutions. “Additionally, part of the funding will be used to create open-source AI tools and datasets, particularly in the agriculture sector, to ensure that small farmers and rural enterprises can benefit from AI without high adoption costs,” says Rajeev Ahuja, director, IIT Ropar pointing to its engagement with AI-CoE in Agriculture which is focused on providing AI solutions to enhance precision farming, crop health monitoring, post-harvest technologies, to name a few.


Unlike conventional academic research centres in Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) which primarily focus on fundamental research and theoretical advancements, the AI CoEs are designed to be industry-oriented and multidisciplinary in nature. “Their primary mandate is to develop AI applications that are commercially viable, ensuring that the research conducted does not remain confined to academic papers but leads to tangible technological solutions. Another key distinction is the direct integration of these CoEs with industries and startups, facilitating innovation in collaboration with practitioners who understand market demands. Unlike academic research centres that function independently within their respective institutions, these CoEs operate as part of a national AI ecosystem, bringing together multiple institutions, including IITs, NITs, IIITs, and other stakeholders, to work on unified research objectives,” Prof Ahuja says.


Through industry-driven projects, internships, and mentorship programmes within academic settings, the CoEs will ensure that graduates gain hands-on experience with AI technologies. “Moreover, the CoEs will substantially aid in incorporating AI into courses by introducing emerging AI trends, interdisciplinary learning, and industry-relevant case studies. Importantly, the aim is that these three CoEs will work closely with the newly announced AI CoE for Education to potentially influence the educational curriculum,” Prof Gaur says.


Discussing the initiative’s broader impact, Prof Rangan Banerjee, director, IIT Delhi elaborates, “Each of the CoEs set up as independent section 8 not-for-profit companies, are a part of the government’s mandate in the Union Budget for AI integration in various fields with the objective of making a difference in people’s lives. IIT Delhi, for instance, is jointly engaged with AIIMS Delhi for one of the CoEs in the healthcare domain. Our aim is to catalyse research and look at ways to use AI for enabling more cost-effective healthcare delivery through a host of projects which will involve industry engagement and PhD scholars.”


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