The IndiaAI Mission organised a workshop on AIKosh, its national platform for datasets, AI models and related resources, at the India Habitat Centre here on Thursday, bringing together representatives from the government, industry, academia and the startup ecosystem to discuss ways to unlock India’s data potential for artificial intelligence.
The workshop focused on strengthening India’s AI-ready data ecosystem and promoting the responsible, secure and effective use of data for innovation and national development.
The programme began with a welcome address by Mohammed Y. Safirulla K, Director, IndiaAI Mission, who introduced AIKosh to the participants. Sudeep Shrivastava, Chief Operating Officer of the IndiaAI Mission, outlined the agenda for the day.
Data Key to India’s Sovereign AI Ambitions
Addressing the gathering on “Data as National Wealth: India’s Imperative for Sovereign AI”, IndiaAI Mission Chief Executive Officer Saurabh Vijay underlined the strategic importance of data for India’s sovereign AI ambitions and called for greater efforts to unlock the value of the country’s data assets.
“AIKosh is the platform India has provided for the ecosystem. If we are to match the best in the world, our collective ownership of this initiative is what will take it to that global standard,” Vijay said.
The workshop was formally inaugurated by Dr Saurabh Garg, Secretary, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, who highlighted the need to strengthen India’s data ecosystem and enable the responsible use of data to support emerging AI capabilities.
“The defining challenge we are solving alongside the IndiaAI Mission is ensuring that data is discoverable, understandable, interoperable, and securely accessible across all ministries,” Garg said.
A presentation on the present status and future roadmap of AIKosh was jointly delivered by Shikha Dahiya, Joint Director, IndiaAI Mission, and Swadeep Singh, General Manager, Data Science, IndiaAI Mission.
Focus on Data Governance and Responsible Sharing
The first session, titled “Thought Leadership: Unlocking AI Data at Scale”, brought together data and AI experts from industry and academia, including representatives of Google DeepMind, UIDAI, the World Bank, IIT Jodhpur, EkStep and CoRover.ai.
The panel discussed lawful data sharing, privacy-preserving data use and the opportunities and challenges associated with sharing different categories of data. The session was moderated by Suhel Bidani, Deputy Director, Digital and AI, Gates Foundation.
The discussion was followed by keynote addresses by Nand Kumaram, CEO of the National e-Governance Division, on unlocking data for AI in governance; Tanusree Deb Barma, Deputy Director General, UIDAI, on scaling data access for Digital Public Goods; and Abhishek Upperwal, Founder and CEO of SoketAI, on the needs of the open data ecosystem.
AI Developers Discuss Data and Platform Requirements
The second session, “What the Developer Ecosystem Needs”, brought together model builders, sectoral innovators and data collectors to discuss the datasets, platforms and data architecture needed to develop AI applications and foundational models suited to India’s requirements.
The session, moderated by Dr Santosh Misra, Partner at PwC, also explored the needs of developers and innovators working to build scalable AI solutions.
Sectoral Discussions on Health, Agriculture and Education
In the afternoon, participants divided into three parallel roundtables covering health and life sciences, agriculture and livelihoods, and education, science and technology.
The discussions identified priority opportunities, datasets required for specific use cases, challenges faced by data custodians and possible mechanisms for enabling responsible data sharing.
Participants also examined ways to convert available data into practical, scalable AI applications across key sectors.
MoUs Signed to Strengthen AI and Digital Public Infrastructure
As part of the workshop, IndiaAI, the National e-Governance Division (NeGD) and the Centre for Digital Public Infrastructure (CDPI), through the International Institute of Information Technology Bengaluru (IIIT-B), signed a Memorandum of Understanding to strengthen cooperation in building India’s AI and Digital Public Infrastructure ecosystem.
The partnership will provide technical, architectural, policy and knowledge support to IndiaAI and NeGD, including for the development of population-scale AI-enabled governance solutions and secure, seamless data exchange for AI-ready datasets, models and other resources hosted on AIKosh.
The MoU will also facilitate knowledge exchange, ecosystem engagement and the development of frameworks, templates, dashboards, prototypes and testing environments.
A second MoU was signed between the IndiaAI Mission and the EkStep Foundation to advance collaboration on India’s AI ecosystem. The agreement was signed by Sudeep Shrivastava, COO of the IndiaAI Mission, and Jagdish Babu, COO of the EkStep Foundation.
The partnership aims to promote collective intelligence and develop cost-efficient, scalable AI operating systems, open-gate models, platforms and solutions by bringing together capabilities from across the ecosystem to enable accessible and impactful AI innovation.
Focus on Action-Oriented Data Ecosystem
The workshop concluded with a debrief session in which moderators of the sectoral breakout groups presented the key outcomes and proposed follow-up actions.
Priority areas identified included onboarding high-value datasets onto AIKosh, strengthening data harmonisation, developing privacy-preserving data exchange capabilities, addressing concerns of data custodians and identifying new data streams for the platform.
In his plenary remarks, MeitY Secretary S. Krishnan stressed the importance of building an enabling ecosystem for the responsible and impactful use of data to advance India’s AI ambitions.
“The critical aspect of all technology is the impact it has on society, how it enhances quality of life, and what it offers to the people of the country. For India, this is truly an opportunity to leverage a horizontal, cross-cutting technology like AI to ensure the country is firmly on the path to becoming Viksit Bharat by 2047,” he said.
The workshop concluded with a commitment to strengthen engagement among data custodians, technology developers, researchers and institutions to build a more robust and action-oriented AI data ecosystem.
About AIKosh
AIKosh, developed under the IndiaAI Mission, is a national platform for datasets, AI models and related resources aimed at improving the discoverability, accessibility and responsible use of AI-ready resources.
The platform currently hosts more than 15,000 datasets, 300 AI models and 30 toolkits, supporting researchers, startups, developers and students in building AI-based solutions using national resources.
About IndiaAI Mission
The IndiaAI Mission, under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, is working to strengthen India’s AI ecosystem through initiatives covering compute capacity, datasets and models, innovation, AI applications, future skills, startup financing, and safe and trusted AI.
