India leading the world in AI talent acquisition, among top countries in AI skill penetration: Ashwini Vaishnaw

As per the report quoted by the Union Minister, India leads the world in AI talent acquisition, with an annual hiring rate of about 33 per cent. India has also seen AI talent concentration grow more than threefold since 2016.

India's Artificial Intelligence (AI) strategy is based on the vision of democratising technology. It aims to address India-centric challenges and create opportunities and jobs in AI.

AI-specific jobs span multiple sectors such as IT, manufacturing, agriculture, healthcare, governance, etc. As AI adoption deepens across these sectors, the demand for skilled professionals is also rising.

"Government of India recognises this and has aligned its AI initiatives in this direction. This is also reflected in global assessments about India's AI workforce," the Minister submitted the information in Rajya Sabha.

According to industry estimates, Minister Vaishnhaw said, India's AI talent base is expected to more than double by 2027, growing at a compound annual growth rate of around 15 per cent.

India's growing AI talent base is also reflected in global developer participation. As per global data on GitHub AI projects by geographic distribution, India was the second-largest contributor worldwide in 2024, accounting for 19.9 per cent of all AI projects.

"This underscores the depth of India's AI developer ecosystem. It also validates the Government's focus on large-scale AI skilling, research and innovation under the IndiaAI Mission," the minister said.

Various initiatives of the Government of India supporting the development of AI talent pipeline include supporting 500 PhD scholars, 5,000 postgraduates and 8,000 undergraduates for AI-related work.

As many as 27 IndiaAl Data and AI Labs are established in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities through NIELIT to conduct coursework in AI, data curation, annotation, cleaning and applied data science; 174 lTIs and Polytechnics across 27 States/UTs have been approved to set up additional IndiaAl Data and AI Labs.

The government, in collaboration with NASSCOM, is equipping learners with cutting-edge skills essential in today's rapidly evolving digital landscape including AI, Big data and Cloud computing. Courses have been aligned with National Occupational Standards (NOS) and National Skills Qualification Framework (NSQF). Over 500+ courses and 2000+ digital fluency pathways are offered on the platform. So far, 16.29 lakh+ candidates have enrolled/trained in various courses.

A free national-level foundational course, "YUVA AI for ALL" has been launched to create mass awareness and basic AI literacy.

As per NASSCOM's report, India possesses the world's largest digitally skilled talent pool and has the capacity to reskill and develop 8-10 million professionals in AI-related services by 2030.

"The government is adopting a whole-of-government approach to AI skilling and workforce development. Through the IndiaAI Mission and related platforms, it is working with Ministries, State Governments, educational institutions and industry to build AI skills," as per the information submitted by Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw. (ANI)