Indian digital economy is expected to cross 1 trillion USD in this decade, with Karnataka aiming to contribute one-third of it. Mass adoption of AI is critical to fueling nationwide digital transformation and achieving both benchmarks.

Is it safe to proclaim that digital growth is what will propel India to the rank of economic superpower? The digital economy contributes to 12 per cent of India’s GDP currently, accelerating around 3X of overall GDP growth. By 2027-28, it’s projected to be valued at 1 trillion USD; only 20 countries with economic output greater than that number. What’s also evident is AI’s contribution to this exploding e-economy of India, a country with the world’s largest populace and possibly untapped digital potential.  From conversational interfaces allowing easy consumption of citizen digital platforms, smart decision-making and operations across core industries, personalised services, or optimising the core IT scapes running all the above, AI has transformed operations, delivery, accessibility, and consumption of digital services from tier-1 to grassroots of the country.  

In alignment, government conversations have fast shifted from ‘just data sovereignty’ to a full stack Sovereign AI. One, that not only aims to suffice the exploding online consumption needs securely and cost-effectively for India’s 1.4 billion populace but is also robust enough to empower indigenous companies and attract foreign investments. Cloud4C-CtrlS group for instance, one of the most trusted digital and cloud transformation multi-nationals born out of India, has already embraced the sovereign AI vision, accelerating innovations around the stack at the datacenter-cloud-platforms-application levels to better serve the industries running the nation. The IndiaAI mission, launched with over a billion USD budget, grants the necessary impetus as well. Its core initiatives reflect the ‘Trident’ behind India’s Sovereign AI ambition; localised infrastructure, localised data, localised talent. 

Unsurprisingly, Bengaluru and Karnataka at large, one of India’s innovation and IT hotspots, leads to fruitful implementation of the mission.

Localised AI Infrastructure: Think AI Datacenters and Cloud

In-country compliant AI infrastructure lays the groundwork for India’s AI initiatives. Karnataka is home to some of these leading data centers and indigenous cloud players, focused on delivering a stack that meets the state’s and the nation’s requirements at large. The government aims to attract over 10,000 crore INR in data center and cloud investments by 2025, offering substantial subsidies in capital investments, utility costs, and real estate. The initiatives aim to catalyse capacities to 200 MW, bolstering digital transformation across key sectors such as finance, healthcare, manufacturing, automotive, and more. Notably, Karnataka leads the country’s efforts to become an electronics manufacturing hub with key investments across semiconductor and consumer electronics production. 

Leading players in the region such as CtrlS, Cloud4C have for decades established highly secure, high-availability datacenters and cloud ecosystems that cater to the truly localised needs of hundreds of millions of consumers from tier-2, and 3 regions of the country and high-performance computing requirements of enterprises. The proliferation of edge centers, hybrid models, or multi-cloud landscapes render the requisite operational and business flexibility, compute firepower, or native services to accelerate any form of the digital initiative across the country. From the core infrastructure to the platform, middleware, and application level, it’s a one-stop solution stack for enterprises to roll out their innovations to consumers anytime, anywhere without a glitch. 

Localised Data: Generation, Consolidation, Application

The lack of localised data quality continues to hinder the government’s ambitious AI and GenAI initiatives, one that can truly address Indians’ bespoke demands. There are multiple layers to achieving data sanctity, a cycle of its own rather than a procedural system. The starting point is in rolling out base digital programs across consumers in tier-2, tier-3 cities, and beyond & MSMEs thereby exploding the generation of real-time localised activity data. The second stage is effective data consolidation, cleaning, and pre-processing on cloud-native, in-country compliant, and highly secure data lakes, and data warehouses to architect the foundations for final AI development and application rollout, that is the third stage. Cloud4C has been a leading voice in this layer, assisting large-scale organisations and government entities operating on hundreds of TBs worth of confidential data to store, backup, secure, and consolidate the data-scapes for long-term transformation initiatives. Once the primary bedrocks are in place, synthetic data generation can accelerate customised AI outcomes, hence faster digital initiatives and adoption, evidently generating more data. The cycle repeats. 

Karnataka has been an early investor in consumer and business digitalisation, and machine learning initiatives from the 2010s. It’s therefore a data-rich state; the Bhoomi revenue database and crop surveys for example deliver critical insights on land, crop, and farmer state of affairs. The region holds crores of confidential citizen data, important in rendering tailored intelligence. Or, it’s data consolidation systems, congregating information across hundreds of government departments and their thousands of systems to set the tone for harmonious digital public services and citizen querying. Timber revenue optimisation with ML for the Forest Department, Traffic Monitoring systems, leading the National Academic Depository with over 70 million e-certificates across school and research institutions, the list goes on. As Shreevyas H M, Project Director at e-Governance, Government of Karnataka mentioned at Cypher 2024, “AI is no more a futuristic concept, it is a reality now.”

Localised Talent: Where Digitalisation Meets Culture
Aligning technology strategies and outcomes with the unique behavioural, cultural, economic, and lifestyle signals of thousands of divergent communities across the country is a herculean task. Needless to mention the memes that say, ‘India is not for everyone’, highlight the unprecedented diversity and cultural richness of the nation. Hence, upskilling the country’s workforce already in allegiance to India’s cultural roots is equally important as building native infrastructure and datasets in supercharging India’s AI initiatives for now and the future. Karnataka is no different, harbouring over 1.5 million IT professionals, most of whom are being trained in AI skills. Hundreds of AI patents are being filed from the state each year, with IISc alone contributing over 500 in the past 5 years. Bengaluru is home to over 15,000 startups and 30 per cent of the country’s Global Capability Centers (GCCs). The Government of Karnataka has partnered with the World Economic Forum to set up a Global Centre of Artificial Intelligence, aimed to accelerate AI upskilling, local innovations, and large-scale initiatives. Recently, Shiksha Copilot for 1000 teachers was rolled out across the state, a beta phase before large-scale implementation to personalise pedagogy. 

Also Read | Karnataka Empowering: Tomorrows Workforce Skills with Nipuna Karnataka

The vision aligns well with Cloud4C which has always emphasized investing in localised talents and resources in all the 30+ countries it has expanded to. This has, over the decade, set the stage for us to become a one-stop sovereign digital transformation and now AI partner for enterprises and government entities; localised infrastructure, compliant hybrid and multi-cloud, in-country based data modernisations, and local talent support. Karnataka is indeed a significant focus and innovation center where Cloud4C and CtrlS run their own data center with indigenous resources to support round-the-stack digital business needs. The company has been driving mission-critical engagements for some of the state’s notable government entities as well, catalysing the sovereign AI mission.

Views expressed by Arindam Mukherjee, President – Sales, Cloud4C India

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