AI + Digital Infra: 100x Power Boost, Says Vaishnaw

Mumbai, Feb 24 (PTI) Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Monday said the power of digital public infrastructure like Aadhaar can increase 100 times if used with artificial intelligence tools.

Speaking at IT industry body nasscom's technology and leadership forum NTLF 2025 here, Vaishnaw said the government has already begun using the AI tools along with DPI (digital public infrastructure).

"The power of DPI actually can get multiplied by 10x, 20x, 100x, when we use AI," he said.

The minister said that if China can create a DeepSeek foundational AI model, there is no reason why a country like India, which has put frugal innovation to reach the moon, cannot create a similar model at low cost.

He said an application process for a government-promoted scheme to create our own large language model has already started and also exuded confidence in India's startups to develop their own models.

India is taking a techno legal approach to regulations rather than adopting a hard approach like the one taken by the European countries, he said.

The minister also said that Japan has given a patent to the Unified Payments Interface developed in India.

Shifting from a services-led country to a product-driven one is the aspiration for India, he said, adding that the government has launched a product development challenge for entrepreneurs to put locally made chipsets to use with the same objective.

Vaishnaw also exhorted nasscom to expand the skilling initiative by 100 times, under which the industry is given autonomy to set curriculum for students, which ensures that it gets trained manpower at the end of the education rather than spending time in training.

Similar experiments have been successfully carried out by Airbus and Deutsche Bank, he said.