Hyderabad: With a rise in the deployment of Artificial Intelligence (AI) across sectors, the number of AI startups too has seen a significant increase in the country.
The number of AI startups has gone up from 0.68% of the total startups in the country in the year 2000 to 7.50% in 2019, said ‘The AI Index 2021 Annual Report’ by Deepa Mani, Madhumitha Mohan, and Monish K of the Srini Raju Centre for IT and the Networked Economy, ISB.
As per the report, in 2019, Karnataka had the maximum number of AI startups at 356, followed by Maharashtra with 215 and 111 in the two Telugu states of Andhra Pradesh & Telangana.
At the other end, the ecosystem in states such as Bihar, Goa, J&K, Jharkhand, Puducherry, and Uttarakhand lacked the presence of any AI startups, it added.
AI startup funding also clocked an over 97% CAGR (compounded annual growth rate), from $20 million in 2013 to $233 million in 2019.
The percentage share of total funding in AI startups as a part of the total startup ecosystem in India also rose steadily from 0.28% in 2013 to 1.54% in 2019, the report said.
Along with startups, there has also been a rapid growth in AI-related job postings across the country in the last few years.
However, the AI job postings represented only a small percentage (2% in January 2019 -March 2020) out of the total jobs posted in India, it added.
“With the emerging use cases of AI in a vast array of sectors, the challenge remains in generating skilled resources to meet the demand of growing AI-related jobs,” the report said.
Deepa Mani, ISB faculty, pointed out that AI has helped Indian businesses to be resilient to the Covid-19 pandemic in the country and helped them redesign their models for tomorrow.
The report was launched virtually by Telangana IT and industries principal secretary Jayesh Ranjan and Microsoft India’s national technology officer Rohini Srivathsa.
