A UK-based firm plans to invest ₹30,000 crores in the first phase to set up a semiconductor fabrication unit in Odisha’s Ganjam district. The SRAM and MRAM Technologies and Projects India Pvt. Limited is the Indian unit of the UK-based SRAM and MRAM group.
On March 26, the firm signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the state government to set up the semiconductor unit in the state.
The Group Vice Chairman, Dr.Gurujee Kumaran Swami, conducted a meeting with the district administration at Chhatrapur after visiting nearby sites in the district. The company officials visited other areas of the districts as well but preferred a location close to Chhatrapur due to Gopalpur port, a dedicated industrial corridor, an airstrip, and a national highway, besides the availability of clean water and energy required for fabrication units.
Shri Dibya Jyoti Parida, the collector of Ganjam, has assured the investors availability of all facilities for setting up the unit.
“We have visited some sites, including the industrial park of Tata and some private lands for the establishment of the proposed semiconductor unit. A technical team of the company will visit the district to finalize the site,” said Debadutt Singhdeo, project director of the firm.
According to officials, the firm requires approximately 500-800 acres of land to establish the Semiconductor unit. They have planned to launch the unit within two years and provide employment to around 5000 people.
The firm will produce memory chips that are used in laptops, mobiles, televisions, ATMs, and air conditioners. As the country is not self-reliant in producing semiconductors, it imports approximately ₹3 lakh crore semiconductors annually from other countries.
Berhampur MP Chandra Sekhar Sahu, “The project will boost industrialization in the district.” Due to increasing industrial policy, many industries are interested in investing, and this will aid in generating employment as well as address the semiconductor requirement in India, Sahu said.
The Indian government announced ‘Bhashini,’ a ground-breaking AI-based programme, in 2022 with the goal of bridging the linguistic gap inside the nation. Now the program has been officially introduced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the televised summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), emphasizing its potential global significance.
India is renowned for having a wide variety of languages, with the 2011 Census reporting that at least 10,000 people in India speak 121 major languages. However, many of these languages have found it difficult to find online representation in the digital age, which has hampered the growth of a fully developed digital economy. Addressing this problem and facilitating smooth communication between various Indian languages is Bhashini’s main goal.
Bhashini works on creating a National Public Digital Platform for regional languages as part of the National Language Translation Mission (NLTM), which is run by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). The government wants to move beyond the dominance of Hindi or English by providing digital information in native tongues. Bhashini aspires to empower Indian MSMEs, start-ups, and developers by giving them access to cutting-edge language technology through the use of AI and natural language processing (NLP) tools.
A data repository, a model repository, and the Universal Language Contribution API (ULCA) are all included in the comprehensive framework known as Bhashini. The greatest resource of Indian languages is ULCA, a standardised and scalable platform for Indian language datasets and models.
Bhashini’s use of ULCA to collect important data and model contributions will help researchers create AI tools for machine translation, automated speech recognition (ASR), text-to-speech (TTS), and optical character recognition (OCR) across a variety of Indian languages. At the moment, ULCA is home to an excellent collection of benchmark datasets, 80 ASR models, and 466 translation models.
In a recent study employing artificial intelligence (AI), the Union Ministry of Communications found that 40.87 lakh (0.47%) of the 87.85 crore mobile phone connections examined across India were secured using forged documents. There are 131 crore subscribers in 22 Licenced Service Areas (LSA) circles across the nation. However, only 87.85 crore connections were examined in phase 1.
ASTR, an artificial intelligence and facial recognition-powered solution for telecom SIM subscriber verification, detected 40.87 lakh fraud connections on Tuesday. Of those, 38 lakh such numbers have been disconnected, according to an internal communication sent on Tuesday by K Rajaraman, secretary from the Ministry of Communications, to Chief Secretaries and Director Generals of Police of all states and Union Territories.
In phase 1 of the analysis, which examined 87 crore mobile connections across 22 LSA circles in India, it was also discovered that 44,582 telecom service provider Point of Sales (PoS) were involved in the sale of these connections.
The analysis of 1.20 crore mobile connections in Jammu and Kashmir revealed that 15,194 of these connections had been secured using fabricated or false documents, on which the investigators had discovered the same faces but different identities. In Jammu and Kashmir, 14,494 lines were disconnected due to the fraudulent connections, and 3024 PoS were placed on a blacklist.
Similarly, 5.33 lakh numbers were discovered to have been obtained using forged documents in the Haryana circle, where 3.08 crore connections were examined. 5.24 lakh phone numbers were terminated as a result, which was the most in phase 1. Almost 3.17 crore numbers were assessed in the Punjab circle, and 1,51 lakh were discovered to be fraudulent connections, while 1.44 lakh numbers were disconnected.
Five FIRs were registered in Haryana, but only 13 in Punjab. Out of 4.52 crore connections evaluated, West Bengal circle saw the largest number of fraudulent connections (12,34,114), yet not a single FIR was filed. “More FIRs need to be filed against the offenders in order to stop the threat,” said the Ministry’s communique.
On Wednesday night, Mark Zuckerberg of Meta dealt Elon Musk a blow as the much anticipated Threads platform, an Instagram clone of Twitter, finally launched, setting the stage for the tech billionaires’ fight. “Let’s do this. Welcome to Threads,” Zuckerberg posted on the app.
Although Threads was first released as a standalone app, users could log in with their Instagram credentials and follow the same profiles, potentially making it simple for Instagram’s more than 2 billion monthly active users to incorporate it into their routines.
The app, which is marketed as a text-based Instagram alternative for “real-time updates and public conversations,” will at first be accessible in more than 100 nations, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Japan.
Due to ongoing discussions between Meta and regulators about how to control data sharing between the app and Instagram, Threads won’t be initially available in the European Union. Among the first famous people to sign up for the website were actor Jack Black, pop diva Shakira, and British celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay.
Launching the network that some tech analysts have termed a “Twitter killer” is seen as a direct challenge to Musk, whose management of Twitter has drawn harsh criticism from some users and is sure to exacerbate the competition between the two billionaire tech titans.
The newly launched Threads app, which users can access using their current Instagram accounts, might profit from Instagram’s user base and connections to advertising.
Google I/O Connect event covered several AI-powered tools and technologies for developers in India to build scalable and high-quality solutions in the most creative way. This event was conducted in Bengaluru, India, on June 28, 2023.
LLM Model
At the I/O Connect event, Google announced the availability and access to its new Large Language Models (LLM) PalM 2 for Indian developers. Through this LLM model, Google will help developers build custom enterprise-ready generative AI applications. Following the same, Google tweeted, “Developers in India will now have access to both PaLM API and Makersuite”.
At #GoogleIOConnect Bengaluru, Rahul Sukthankar talks about how we’re making it easier for developers to boost their productivity with Generative AI.
At the event, they also discussed Project Vaani, which was launched last year by Google in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) to digitalize Indian languages using AI. The project aims to collect anonymous speech data from people across 773 districts in India. Further, Google also mentioned IISc is now open-sourcing the datasets that have been collected over a year. Developers can now access over 4,000 hours of speech data across 38 languages, collected from 10K+ speakers from 80 districts. With the help of these datasets, developers can create their own applications that reflect how local languages are spoken and cater to customer needs.
We’re opening access to Google’s research models and datasets to help developers build meaningful solutions with India-focused speech data and location information.
Google also launched an accelerator program for ONDC (Open Network for Digital Commerce). It is an initiative to help startups and businesses with the necessary resources to accelerate their digital commerce operations. To support the growth of India’s digital sellers, Google Cloud open-sourced a ready implementation of ONDC infrastructure and core APIs. Businesses and startups can now use Google Retail AI technology to enhance their search experiences on the network. Additionally, access to PaLM API will also help increase the quality of catalogs using generative AI.
Google also announced a startup credits program for eligible businesses under which businesses will get a $25,000-grant if they are ONDC enabled.
.@GoogleCloud_IN is launching an Accelerator Program for @ONDC_Official and making it easier to onboard the network by bringing in technology to enable better consumer experiences when it comes to buying and selling online.
Google members also talked about their Project Bindi, which was launched last year to evaluate biases in Natural Language Processing (NLP) present in the Indian socio-cultural context. Since then, Google has built a SeeGull Database, which is now open-sourced, a global stereotype benchmark with broad geo-cultural coverage. They soon plan to share this database with the developers.
Build generative AI applications with PaLM API, MakerSuite, and Vertex AI
Google announced several tools which will be available for Indian developers, including Vertex AI, PaLM API, MakerSuite, and features within Google Maps like Address Descriptors. Apart from this, to help developers build custom and enterprise-ready generative AI applications, Google has made Generative AI support available on Google Cloud’s Vertex AI.
Further, they introduced three new models in Vertex AI, including Codey, Chirp, and Imagen. Codey is a powerful code completion and generation tool to enhance a developer’s coding speed. Developers can train this model on their own code to quickly build applications. Chirp is a universal speed model that brings speech-to-text accuracy for over 300 languages. Last from Vertex AI was the Imagen tool, used to create and edit images from text inputs.
Improved Maps
Google also unveiled Address Descriptor, designed for Indian developers to build geospatial experiences for Indian cities. It is an Indian-first experiment that is now available in more than 25 Indian metro cities. Using this feature, developers can help their users efficiently find addresses by sharing the most relevant and nearest landmarks and area names.
In partnership with Samsung, Google’s next launch was the Watch Face Format feature, a new declarative XML format. It will help developers to effortlessly build and launch an app on Wear OS. In addition, they also introduced Compose for TV, which is currently in the alpha development stage. This technology will help developers seamlessly build native TV apps with the support of an optimized library of components provided by Google.
Conclusion
These were the number of tools and technologies announced by Google to help Indian developers harness the power of AI. Not only will these tools help developers build powerful applications for a variety of platforms, but they will also give them an opportunity to unlock the power of AI.
In an interview with Peter H. Diamandis for the Moonshots and Mindsets Podcast, Stability AI CEO Emad Mostaque said that there won’t be any human programmers in five years. Additionally, he stated that ChatGPT will be accessible on phones by the end of the year 2024 and will function without an internet connection.
Mostaque stated that 41% of all code on Github right now is AI generated when discussing the future of AI and how code is now being authored by AI. “In five years, there won’t be any programmers,” he said. According to Mostaque, the London-based business wants to democratize AI so that anyone can utilize it for their benefit.
“My goal is to give society OS building blocks,” he declared. “Our goal is to create a solid foundation that will unleash human potential, hence we are creating models for each and every modality. We do it for every industry, whether it is music, video, DNA, chemical reactions, or language.”
“Therefore, you now have a banker GPT and a board GPT to replace all of your unnecessary board members. We’re doing this so that everyone may have a program where they can put words in and anything that comes out will be acceptable for them and will enhance them,” he added.
Mostaque was asked in the same interview if he could forecast what will happen in terms of AI in the next ten years. He replied that he couldn’t see beyond five years and that by the end of the following year, people wouldn’t need an internet connection to access ChatGPT because it will be available on phones.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), a leading US technology company, disclosed on Tuesday, July 4, that it has teamed up with VVDN Technologies, an Indian producer, to start producing some of its high-volume servers under recently announced Production Linked Incentive (PLI) Scheme 2.0.
This action, which follows Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent state visit to the US, intends to increase India’s domestic production capabilities. Within the first five years of production, HPE and the collaborators intend to produce high-runner servers in India valued about $1 billion.
According to a statement, “HPE has partnered with Indian manufacturer VVDN Technologies to manufacture HPE’s products from its plant in Manesar in Haryana because of India’s fast expanding electronic manufacturing environment.”
Officials from HPE and VVDN Technologies met with Union Electronics and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Tuesday to discuss the effort in detail prior to the announcement. Vaishnaw applauded the decision of the US tech giant to begin manufacturing in India.
— Ashwini Vaishnaw (@AshwiniVaishnaw) July 4, 2023
According to the announcement, Vaishnaw added, “We welcome HPE’s decision to start their manufacturing line in India as it will enhance domestic production capacities. We think that manufacturing huge amounts of IT gear will contribute to widening and deepening the manufacturing ecosystem.”
India is to become a hub for electronics system design and manufacturing (ESDM), thanks to the recently unveiled Production Linked Incentive (PLI) Scheme 2.0. This scheme for IT Hardware proposes a financial incentive to expedite domestic manufacturing and attract huge investments in the value chain.
The Bharat 6G Alliance was unveiled on Monday by Ashwini Vaishnaw, Union Minister of Communications and Electronics & Information Technology. This ground-breaking effort aims to introduce the next-generation technology in India following the successful deployment of 5G.
With the aim of advancing telecommunications technology and promoting the growth of 6G in the nation, the Bharat 6G Alliance brings together important stakeholders from the public and private sectors as well as other agencies.
Minister Vaishnaw emphasized India’s considerable advancements in the field of 6G technology during an occasion, noting that the country has already amassed over 200 patents. He emphasized how the next 6G technology will expand on the 5G base and enable a variety of improved capabilities, such as increased reliability, ultra-low latency, and cost-effective solutions.
The government intends to implement a fresh round of telecom reforms in the coming weeks in addition to the Bharat 6G Alliance. With speeds roughly 100 times faster than those of 5G, the next 6G is expected to revolutionize communication and create exciting new opportunities for the creation of cutting-edge communication applications.
The 6G vision document was originally published by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in March of this year, underlining the initiative’s enormous potential to open up new prospects for entrepreneurs, sectors, and startups. India’s extensive intentions to create and introduce 6G telecom services over the next few years are laid out in the vision paper.
IIT Guwahati is opening up access to the entirely online degree programme through a number of enrollment paths in order to fulfill this demand and follow NEP 2020 recommendations. Anyone who has completed Class XII or an equivalent with mathematics as a required subject is eligible to apply.
Direct admission will be granted to those who are qualified and have registered for JEE Advanced (in any year), while those who do not may take an online course and be admitted based on their performance.
The degree offers several exit possibilities and rewards learning throughout. By converting their credits into a certificate, diploma, degree, and finally an honors degree, students can graduate from the programme. Online courses are mostly asynchronous to maximize flexibility and engagement. This allows students to learn at their own speed, while optional campus visits provide them the chance to interact with peers and teachers.
Before moving on to more specialized topics like generative AI, deep learning, computer vision, and data mining, students develop a foundation in coding. Through group projects, real-world case studies, and internships, students will improve their learning. Students can increase their understanding of job-relevant topics by earning industry micro-credentials, which are available in the programme and accepted as prior learning.
The BSc (Honors) in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence programme will accept applications beginning on July 19, 2023, with the commencement of classes set for October 2023.
For future expansions of the e-commerce industry, Meesho, the emerging shopping platform, intends to promote advancements and breakthroughs in fields like generative artificial intelligence and multimodal large language models (LLMs).
As part of an industry-academia partnership, the e-commerce marketplace Meesho and the Vision & AI Lab (VAL) of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for research that will last for one year.
In accordance with the MoU, Meesho’s data scientists will work with lab researchers from the institute to concentrate on generative AI skills and multimodal representation learning. By improving the online shopping experience for customers, the goal is to have a significant impact on the e-commerce sector.
Additionally, the partners believe that this will maintain Meesho at the forefront of the escalating competitiveness in the ecommerce industry and perhaps lead to the publication of research articles.
“Innovative thinking and technology are enabling a significant transformation in e-commerce. Online buying habits of consumers are evolving, and new trends are appearing. At Meesho, we welcome this profound transformation brought on by new technologies. The goal of developing solutions that ultimately benefit both customers and sellers equally will be strengthened by this collaboration,” Rajesh Kumar SA, director of data science at Meesho.
“By pooling our resources, we can create new opportunities and enhance technology that will provide beneficial business solutions for millions of customers,” said Venkatesh Babu, the head of the Vision & AI lab at IISc. Meesho announced its intention to increase its investment in AI and machine learning in June, citing the increasing integration of these technologies across industries.
