PM Modi-Bill Gates in freewheeling chat, AI and climate change discussed

A blockbuster interaction featuring two world leaders, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, will be unveiled on Friday. The interaction sees PM Modi and Gates in a freewheeling chat discussing a range of issues ranging from artificial intelligence to digital public infrastructure and efforts to combat climate change.

A promotional teaser of the interaction was released on Thursday. In the teaser, Bill Gates explains how Indians are not only adopting technology, but are actually leading the way.

PM Modi, referring to AI, says that a child born in India shouts 'Ai' and 'AI' (Ai in Marathi is mother). The Prime Minister also encourages Gates to take a selfie using the Photo Booth on the Prime Minister's Namo app. The Namo app recently introduced a new AI-powered Photo Booth feature that allows users to find their photos with the Prime Minister using facial recognition technology.

AI is one of the government's priority areas. As part of the vision of Making AI in India, the Cabinet had recently approved the IndiaAI overall mission at the national level with a budgetary outlay of Rs. 10,371.92 crore.

The IndiaAI Mission will establish a comprehensive ecosystem catalyzing AI innovation through strategic programs and partnerships across the public and private sectors. By democratizing access to computing, improving data quality, developing local AI capabilities, attracting top AI talent, enabling industrial collaboration, providing early-stage venture capital, ensuring socially impactful AI projects and strengthening ethical AI will promote responsible and inclusive growth of the Indian AI ecosystem.

Earlier, Bill Gates, in an interview with ANI, had praised the work being done on AI in India.

“Well, there's a lot of fantastic work on AI going on in this country. You have innovators like Nandan Nilekani who are taking all of this digital work and asking: OK, how does AI make this even better ?You have groups like Wadhwani. You have the IIT groups that are at the forefront of technology. In India, there will be a lot of fantastic leadership work in the field of AI here in India. And when it will help the poorest in areas like health and agriculture, our foundation will be proud to help shape this. and I support it.” Gates said.

Meanwhile, during his interaction with Bill Gates, Prime Minister Modi also spoke about how his government was bringing in technologies to improve the lives of women. He explained that women who did not know how to ride a bike are now becoming drone pilots. The Namo Drone Didi initiative is an integral part of the Prime Minister's vision to drive economic empowerment and financial independence for women, particularly in rural areas.
The discussion also made mention of India's initiatives on climate change mitigation. PM Modi showed Gates the jacket he was wearing, which was made from recycled materials.
At the COP26 summit in Glasgow in 2021, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had pledged to make an ambitious five-pronged 'Panchamrit' commitment, including achieving 500 GW of non-fossil electricity capacity, to generate half of all needs energy from renewable energies, in order to reduce emissions. billion tonnes by 2030.
India also aims to reduce the emissions intensity of its GDP by 45 percent. Finally, India is committed to achieving net zero emissions by 2070. India has notably banned several single-use plastics from July 2022.
The free-wheeling interaction between Prime Minister Modi and Bill Gates, which will be released on Friday, will define the vision of the two thought leaders. (ANI)