AI to have low impact on Indian jobs: IT Secretary S Krishnan

Artificial intelligence (AI) is unlikely to have as much material impact on organised-sector headcount in India as in the West, a top government official said Monday, as far fewer white-collar jobs are potentially at risk here than in the advanced industrial economies.

“The reason we don’t see it as much of a threat in India is possibly because we don’t have as many white-collar jobs at stake, and we don’t see as many office jobs at stake,” S Krishnan, Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY), told delegates at the ETTelecom 5G Congress. “Today’s generative AI mostly replaces manual, repetitive work.” Rather, Krishnan said, AI’s assistance can enhance workforce productivity. “The application of AI into the real segments of the economy, like manufacturing and agriculture, is really possible when there’s an interplay between sensors, IoT devices communicating along 5G and 6G networks, going into a central server, collecting the data and putting it all together, so that it can work,” Krishnan said.

Local Mobile Chip

Further, the secretary said that the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and Meity are jointly working on an indigenous mobile chip that will be critical for the vision of a self-reliant India.

“When we’re talking about an India-based mobile phone OS being developed, the chip for the mobile phone will also be critical. We are jointly working with the DoT in this regard, and that is something the MeitY is supporting under the India Semiconductor Mission and the design-linked incentive scheme,” he said.