What's buzzing

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February 14, 2025:  The United States and India will launch a US-India TRUST (“Transforming the Relationship Utilizing Strategic Technology”) initiative to catalyse government-to-government, academia and private sector collaboration to promote application of critical and emerging technologies in areas like defence, artificial intelligence, semiconductors, quantum, biotechnology, energy and space, while encouraging the use of verified technology vendors and ensuring sensitive technologies are protected.

As a central pillar of this initiative, a US-India Roadmap on Accelerating AI Infrastructure will be put in place. The US and India will work together to enable industry partnerships and investments in next generation data centres, cooperation on development and access to compute and processors for AI, for innovations in AI models and building AI applications for solving societal challenges while addressing the protections and controls necessary to protect these technologies and reduce regulatory barriers.

February 13, 2025: Trust in artificial intelligence is the highest in India as per the 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer way ahead of that in the US (the most dominant country in the AI arena). The Edelman study also points out that more people are sceptical about the business use of AI in the US than in China or India.

February 11, 2025:   The AI Action Summit held on February 10-11 in Paris saw a strong case being made out on how artificial intelligence can prove a gamechanger, and, also, a reiteration of the need to create a conducive atmosphere for AI innovations to flourish!

With the Statement on Inclusive and Sustainable Artificial Intelligence for People and the Planet – which, incidentally, was not signed by the US and the UK – affirming the following main priorities:

· Promoting AI accessibility to reduce digital divides

· Ensuring AI is open, inclusive, transparent, ethical, safe, secure and trustworthy, taking into account international frameworks for all

· Making innovation in AI thrive by enabling conditions for its development and avoiding market concentration driving industrial recovery and development

· Encouraging AI deployment that positively shapes the future of work and labour markets and delivers opportunity for sustainable growth

· Making AI sustainable for people and the planet, and

· Reinforcing international cooperation to promote coordination in international governance

You may wish to read R M Consulting's views on this at:

https://rmconsulting.in/f/ai-action-summit-the-questions-that-still-remain

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https://rmconsulting.in/ai-1 

February 10, 2025: The Anthropic Economic Index has revealed that over one-third of occupations (roughly 36%) see AI use in at least a quarter of their associated tasks, while approximately 4% of occupations use it across three-quarters of their associated tasks. It goes on to add that the use of AI leans more towards augmentation (57%) where AI collaborates with and enhances human capabilities compared to automation (43%), where AI directly performs the tasks. Further pointing out that AI use is more prevalent for tasks associated with mid-to-high wage occupations like computer programmers and data scientists but is lower for both the lowest and highest-paid roles.

February 01, 2025: India’s Budget for the financial year 2025-26 has earmarked Rs 500 crore for the formation of an AI Centre of Excellence for Education. The Centre would be on the lines of those set up earlier focused on agriculture, healthcare, and sustainable cities. 

January 31, 2025:  India's Economic Survey for the financial year 2024-25 has flagged the huge disconnect between corporate profitability and salaries paid to employees. "Despite Indian companies achieving a stable EBITDA margin of 22 per cent over the last four years, wage growth has moderated," says the Survey. Adding: "This uneven growth trajectory raises critical concerns. Wage stagnation is pronounced, particularly at entry-level IT positions." 

January 31, 2025:  India's Economic Survey for the financial year 2024-25 has  advised a calibrated approach on the energy transition issue. Saying "lessons learnt from the experiences of developed economies caution against shutting down thermal energy without adequate technological alternatives that allow a stable energy supply." Going on to point out that "accomplishing the goal of net zero emissions by 2070 will require innovative strategies and robust implementation plans designed to confront both the challenges posed by climate change and the need for sustainable development to take centre stage." And concluding by stating that "to strengthen its renewable energy initiatives, India must prioritise investment in extensive grid infrastructure improvements and the secure sourcing of critical minerals necessary for this transformative shift." 

January 31, 2025:  India's Economic Survey for the financial year 2024-25 has  proposed "safety nets that can shield existing workers from economic and social fallouts". Adding that companies "must display a high degree of social responsibility" pointing out that "although the impact of AI on labour will be felt across the world, the problem is magnified for India, given its size and its relatively low per capita income."

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https://rmconsulting.in/ai-1 

January 29, 2025:  The Union Cabinet  has approved the launch of the National Critical Mineral Mission (NCMM) with an expenditure of Rs 16,300 crore and expected investment of Rs18,000 crore by PSUs, etc. The Finance Minister had announced the setting up of the Critical Mineral Mission in the Union Budget for FY 2024-25.

January 20, 2025: The United States has decided to withdraw from the Paris Agreement. The decision was communicated through the Executive Order on Putting America First In International Environmental Agreements signed by new US President Donald Trump on January 20. The US had withdrawn from the Paris Agreement even during Trump's first stint at the White House but had rejoined under the presidency of Joe Biden.

January 20, 2025: New US President Donald Trump has rescinded the Executive Order 14110 of October 30, 2023 (Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence) issued by his predecessor Joe Biden.

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January 15, 2025: BCG has released its latest AI Radar report, the highlights of which are the following:

 1. 75% of executives rank AI/GenAI as a top 3 strategic priority but, only 25% of executives are seeing significant value from AI
2. 60% of companies are failing to define and monitor any financial KPIs related to AI value creation
3. 2 in 3 companies struggle to hire AI talent and upskill workforce
4. 64% of executives see AI and humans working side by side, and
5. Less than 10% of executives expect a decrease in headcount due to AI automation.

Check out R M Consulting's perspective on the BCG study at:

https://rmconsulting.in/f/bcg-ai-radar-report-companies-financial-kpis

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https://rmconsulting.in/ai-1

December 26, 2024:  The Reserve Bank of India has set up a committee  to develop a Framework for Responsible and Ethical Enablement of Artificial Intelligence (FREE-AI) in the Financial Sector. The Committee will submit its report within six months from the date of its first meeting 

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https://rmconsulting.in/ai-1

December 06, 2024:  As part of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)’s continued efforts to prevent and mitigate digital frauds, the Reserve Bank Innovation Hub (RBIH), Bengaluru, has developed “an innovative AI/ML based model, namely, MuleHunter.AITM”, to help banks expeditiously deal with the issue of mule bank accounts and reduce digital frauds. The announcement was made by the RBI Governor.

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https://rmconsulting.in/ai-1

November 24, 2024:   The COP29 Presidency announced the agreement of the Baku Finance Goal (BFG), a new commitment to channel $1.3tn of climate finance to the developing world each year. Success on the COP29 Presidency’s top priority for the UN Climate Summit represents a significant uplift from the previous climate finance goal of $100 billion and will unlock a new wave of global investment.

You may also wish to read:

https://rmconsulting.in/f/baku-finance-goal-developing-countries     

November 19, 2024:  The leaders of the G20 met in Rio de Janeiro on 18-19 November, 2024, to address major global challenges and crises and promote strong, sustainable, balanced and inclusive growth. Leaders reaffirmed their commitment to building a fair world and a sustainable planet, prioritizing the fight against inequalities in all their dimensions, without leaving anyone behind. The Rio de Janeiro Leaders' Declaration establishes actions towards concrete results, based on the priorities of the Brazilian G20 presidency: (i) social inclusion and the fight against hunger and poverty; (ii) sustainable development, energy transitions and climate action; and (iii) the reform of global governance institutions. 

Nov 12, 2024: A Slack study on AI says that "adoption rates are plateauing and excitement is cooling among the global workforce."  A perception that AI is not "living up to the hype" and a "persistent and significant lack of AI training" are some of the factors causing the "AI downshift".

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https://rmconsulting.in/ai-1

Oct 15, 2024:  Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan announced the establishment of three AI Centres of Excellence (CoE) focused on Healthcare, Agriculture, and Sustainable Cities. AIIMS, IIT Delhi, IIT Ropar, and IIT Kanpur would be involved with this exercise.

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https://rmconsulting.in/ai-1 

Oct 15, 2024: In a move aimed at protecting the interests of consumers, India's Central Consumer Protection Authority has come up with "Guidelines for Prevention and Regulation of Greenwashing or Misleading Environmental Claims, 2024" to ensure companies are not making tall environmental cliams through their ads without providing a proper basis for the assertions made.        

July 23, 2024: In a move reflective of India’s continued commitment to the startup arena, the country has abolished the ‘angel tax’ which had been seen as coming in the way of investors pumping in more funds into local startups. The announcement on the removal of angel tax was made in the Union Budget presented on July 23. The Budget also contained a slew of announcements on youth employment, skills development etc. besides those regarding long term capital gains tax, and removal of indexation benefits in real estate transactions.            

 July 18, 2024: India’s federal think tank Niti Aayog has come up with a reporttitled “Electronics: Powering India’s Participation in Global Value Chains” outlining the measures that need to be taken for the country to become a major force in the electronics arena. The report says India should aim to achieve $500 billion in electronics manufacturing in value terms by FY30.

July 03, 2024: Indian social networking service provider Koo – one of the winners of the 2020 Aatmanirbhar Bharat App Innovation Challenge – and at one point even being talked of as the country’s answer to the then Twitter(now X) has ceased operations. The announcement was made by one of the founders of Koo on LinkedIn.

You may also wish to read R M Consulting's view on the Koo episode here: 

https://rmconsulting.in/f/koo-the-unfulfilled-promise

June 27, 2024: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has come up with an AI Preparedness Index Dashboard to bring out how 174 economies worldwide, including India, currently fare on the AI-readiness front. Understandably, developed economies are found to be more AI-ready than those in the developing world in this exercise carried out by the IMF.

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June 20, 2024: A Hurun Research Institute report has reaffirmed the potential of India’s startup domain by forecasting the likelihood of a further 152 startups turning unicorns in the next five years. As per the said report, the future unicorns were seen disrupting the financial services, business management solutions, education, and healthcare domains. Currently, India boasts of 67 unicorns.

June 15, 2024:  With artificial intelligence forming a part of the agenda of the G7 Italy summit held on June 13-15, it was always expected that assembled leaders at the event would reiterate their commitment to work together for ensuring the safe and responsible use of sophisticated AI technologies. What, however, came as a welcome surprise, though, was the decision taken at the event to “launch an action plan on the use of AI in the world of work”. “We ask our Labor Ministers to develop the action plan, envisaging concrete actions to fully leverage the potential of AI to enable decent work and workers’ rights and full access to adequate reskilling and upskilling, while addressing potential challenges and risks to our labor markets,” the Apulia G7 Leaders’ Communique said.

You may also wish to read R M Consulting’s perspective on this at:

https://rmconsulting.in/f/apulia-g7-leaders%E2%80%99-communique-ai-india

May 17, 2024:  An interim version of the International Scientific Report on the Safety of Advanced AI has reiterated that general-purpose AI can be used to advance “public interest” but can also cause harm if not used responsibly.    The report was commissioned by the UK government and chaired by Yoshua Bengio, a Turing Award-winning AI academic and member of the UN’s Scientific Advisory Board. The work was overseen by an international Expert Advisory Panel made up of 30 countries including the UK and nominees from nations who were invited to the AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park in 2023, as well as representatives of the European Union and the United Nations.  

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https://rmconsulting.in/ai-1

May 10, 2024: The UK’s AI Safety Institute has released its Inspect evaluations platform for use by the AI community worldwide. Inspect is a software library which enables testers – from startups, academia, and AI developers to international governments – to assess specific capabilities of individual models and then produce a score based on their results. Inspect can be used to evaluate models in a range of areas, including their core knowledge, ability to reason, and autonomous capabilities. 

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https://rmconsulting.in/ai-1

May 06, 2024: The Election Commission of India has, through a communication dated May 06, asked all political parties and their leaders to “refrain from using in their campaigning any technological/ AI based tools which distorts information or spreads misinformation, which resultantly lowers the standards of electioneering.” The AI-related communication comes a day prior to the 3rd phase of India’s ongoing 7-phase general elections.

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April 14, 2024: Industry body CII has come up with a corporate governance charter for startups in a move aimed at strengthening the governance framework in India’s startup ecosystem where doubts have surfaced about the robustness of the governance mechanism at several new-age businesses.

R M Consulting’s analysis of this CII measure is available at:

https://rmconsulting.in/f/cii-corporate-governance-charter-for-startups-%7C-a-welcome-measure 

April 12, 2024: The UK and the Republic of Korea are forging ahead with plans for the next wave of global discussions on the safe development of Artificial Intelligence, with the AI Seoul Summit set for May 21-22. The summit will spearhead discussions on AI safety, addressing the potential capabilities of the most advanced AI models, building on the Bletchley Declaration and wider agreements which were reached at the AI Safety Summit in the UK in November 2023, which included commitments from developers on AI safety. Countries will also gather for talks on how the technology can be made more inclusive, ensuring the benefits and opportunities of AI are shared equally – and how attendees can further advance innovation.

Read the Seoul Declaration for safe, innovative and inclusive AI

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https://rmconsulting.in/ai-1

April 02, 2024: The UK and the US have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on April 1 about working together to develop tests for the most advanced AI models, following through on commitments made at the AI Safety Summit held in the UK in November 2023.

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https://rmconsulting.in/ai-1

March 26, 2024: In his 2024 Annual Chairman's Letter to Investors, BlackRock's Larry Fink has advocated the benefits of "energy pragmatism" saying that it is still a path to decarbonization. Going on to point out that "The energy market isn’t divided the way some people think, with a hard split between oil & gas producers on one side and new clean power and climate tech firms on the other".   

You may also wish to read:  

Larry Fink, Energy Pragmatism, & Grandstanding on Renewables

March 21, 2024: The UN General Assembly, on March 21, 2024, adopted a landmark resolution on the promotion of “safe, secure and trustworthy” AI systems. It is the first time the Assembly has adopted a resolution on regulating artificial intelligence. 

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https://rmconsulting.in/ai-1

March 15, 2024: The Union government has approved a scheme to promote India as a manufacturing destination so that e-vehicles with the latest technology can be manufactured in the country. The policy is designed to attract investments in the e-vehicle space by reputed global EV manufacturers.

March 14, 2024: That startups can play a pivotal role in India’s growth and development has never been in doubt. Industry body CII report has spelt out just how these new-age businesses can make a difference. As per its recent report titled Unicorn 2.0: Adding the next trillion , the  startup and venture economy can likely contribute $1 trillion to the Indian economy and, also, add over 50 million jobs by FY 2030.

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Unicorn sun must also rise in the East

March 07, 2024: In keeping with its vision of ‘Making AI in India’ and ‘Making AI work for India’, the country has approved the IndiaAI mission with a budget outlay of Rs 10,371.92 crore. The IndiaAI mission will establish a comprehensive ecosystem to promote AI innovations. 

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https://rmconsulting.in/ai-1