TRAI Chief Pitches For Resilient AI Infrastructure And Strong Self-Regulation To Mitigate Risks

“The design and rollout of AI infrastructure will decide if the technology's advantages stay limited to a few or get distributed broadly across regions and sectors,” Lahoti said in a Nasscom pre-summit event.

“Another important facet is maintaining resiliency within AI infrastructure, this involves establishing safeguards and frameworks that ensure AI systems remain capable of adapting to disruptions and are also reliable, secure and accountable while continuing to serve public and economic objectives...From a regulatory perspective, robust self-regulation is important in this sector as it will enable the industry to proactively address the risks of AI through voluntary commitments and self-certification,” Lahoti said.

Pointing to projections by the International Energy Agency, he said India's total energy demand is projected to grow by about 3 per cent annually till 2035, and underlined the critical need to optimise AI energy demands while boosting digital growth. “The global AI energy consumption is set to more than double by 2030 to around 945 TWh,” he said, highlighting that under the India AI Mission, the government is facilitating affordable access to over 38,000 GPUs, plus a secure 3,000-GPU cluster for strategic use.

Lahoti also described AI infrastructure as a strategic national asset, saying that as India is well placed to capture 10 to 15 per cent of the estimated $17-26 trillion market, AI is expected to add to the global economy over the next decade.

“AI infrastructure is a strategic national asset in a sense because access to these foundational resources has become a key for innovation, economic competitiveness and state capacity, and these are significant for India's transformation to a knowledge economy,” he said.