AI is one of the defining technologies of this age: Professor Pratyush Kumar | Photo for representation via Nasa website

In a bid to accelerate innovation in Artificial Intelligence (AI) in India, scientists from Indian Institutes of Technology-Madras (IIT-Madras) on Wednesday launched a platform called 'AI4Bharat' that would help build AI solutions to address local problems in agriculture, health care and other sectors.

Founded by Dr Mitesh M Khapra and Dr Pratyush Kumar, assistant professors in the department of computer science and engineering, the platform is open to students who would be mentored to solve real-world problems and accelerate AI innovation.

"AI is one of the defining technologies of this age. However, much of the research in AI today is driven by the problems of the West. For instance, building autonomous cars takes priority over building systems that can monitor the condition of rural roads," Kumar said.

"We need to change this by shifting the focus to India. This is where domain experts and the government would play an important role -- identify problems that are unique to India and can benefit from AI," he added.

Khapra and Kumar have also co-founded "One Fourth Labs" (incubated at the IIT Madras Research Park) with a mission to design and deliver affordable hands-on courses on AI and related topics.

"To solve such problems, it is important to move AI research and development out of silos and create a platform where AI professionals can come together to design and build impactful solutions. With this in mind, our immediate goal is to create a community of 100 selected AI experts and 50 domain experts," Khapra said.

The "One Fourth Labs" start-up would work closely with AI4Bharat and offer basic and advanced courses in AI at affordable prices - as low as Rs 1,000 for a five-month online course.