Question : Data Centre Parks

Will the Minister of Electronics & Information Technology be pleased to state:-

(a) whether the Government proposes to formulate any policy to enable private sector to build Data Centre Parks throughout the country and if so, the details thereof;
(b) whether Government has any plan to develop new technologies like Artificial intelligence, Internet-of -Things (IoT), 3D printing, quantum computing, etc. and if so, the details thereof; and
(c) the other steps being taken by the Government to harness the benefit of these technologies?

(a): Yes, Sir. As per the budget announcement 2020-2021, Government proposes to soon bring out a policy to build Data Center Parks throughout the country; this will enable firms to skilfully incorporate data in every step of their value chains.

(b) and (c): Yes, Sir. Government of India has launched a National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber Physical Systems (NM-ICPS) at a total cost of Rs. 3660 Crores for a period of 5 years. NM-ICPS has plans to establish Technology Innovation Hubs in Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things (IoT), 3D printing, Quantum Computing etc. The core activities of these hubs include: Technology Development, translational research and commercialization of new technologies, accelerate entrepreneurship and start-up ecosystem development in these new technologies.

Under the Technology Incubation and Development of Entrepreneurs (TIDE 2.0) Scheme to promote tech entrepreneurship financial and technical support is provided to incubators engaged in supporting ICT startups using emerging technologies such as IoT, AI, Block-chain, Robotics etc. in areas of societal relevance. The Scheme will be implemented through 51 incubators through a three tiered structure with an overarching objective to promote incubation activities at institutes of higher learning and premier R&D organisations.

Further in order to foster innovation and to promote start-ups in the domains of Emerging Technologies like Internet of Things (IOT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality (AR/VR), Data Analytics etc, MeitY has established Centres of Excellence (CoE). These centres connect various entities such as start-ups, enterprises, venture capitalists, government and academia to work on various problem areas and develop emerging Technologies based solutions.

MeitY through NIC & NICSI created Centre of Excellence for Data Analytics (CEDA) to support government departments to unlock the hidden potential of the data that they are generating as a part of the governance processes, and use it to improve the overall governance.
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