An AI & Robotics Technologies Park (ARTPARK) set up in Bengaluru will promote technology innovations in AI (Artificial Intelligence)& Robotics leading to societal impact by executing ambitious mission mode R&D projects in healthcare, education, mobility, infrastructure, agriculture, retail and cyber-security focusing on problems unique to India.

ARTPARK, is a unique not-for-profit foundation established by Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru with support from AI Foundry in a public-private model. With seed funding of Rs. 170 Cr ($22mn) from Department of Science & Technology(DST), Govt. of India, under the National Mission on Inter-disciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems (NM-ICPS), it will bring about collaborative consortium of partners from industry, academia and government bodies. This will lead to cutting edge innovations in terms of new technologies, standards, products, services and intellectual properties.

"The National Mission ICPS with its 25 Hubs has a unique architecture that envisages a strong collaboration and co-ownership among the triple helix of industry, academia and government with full flexibility. Generous additional support of the Government of Karnataka to the ARTPARK Hub brings extraordinary value in increasing its effectiveness, reach and use. It also sets a template of centre-state partnership in the frontier areas of technology-- a theme which will receive focus in the soon to be released Science, Technology and Innovation Policy 2020", said Professor Ashutosh Sharma, DST Secretary at the launch of the ARTPARK recently.

"Indian academia has been carrying out cutting edge technology research in various domains. However, we have had systemic issues in moving the results of this research from university laboratories into the outside world. ARTPARK would go a long way in establishing a template for addressing this need," Prof. Govindan Rangarajan, Director IISc pointed out.

"These moonshots will not only enable India but also build technology solutions for the 6 bn people in the developing world," Umakant Soni, Co-founder & CEO noted.

ARTPARK will develop AI & Robotics facilities to support technology innovations as well as capacity building through advanced skills training of students and professionals in these areas. Some of these facilities will be key enablers for whole new sets of technologies, products and services. It will develop DataSetu - that will enable confidentiality and privacy-preserving framework to share data and run analytics spurring the data-sharing ecosystem and create a data marketplace, boosting AI applications and solutions.

One such service will be BhashaSetu - that will enable real-time Indic language translation, both of speech to speech and speech to text. This will further unlock the economic potential of the country, and enable all Indian citizens to equitably participate in the economic progress, regardless of their language.

Prof. Bharadwaj Amrutur, Research Head & Director ARTPARK explained how ARTPARK was a natural evolution of the Robert Bosch Centre for Cyber Physical Systems, an interdisciplinary research and academic centre at IISc, with funding from the Bosch group of companies.  

Vishal Dhupar, MD, NVIDIA South Asia, spoke about the collaborations between NVIDIA and ARTPARK to “enable technology to solve humanity's grand challenges". 

Robin Sukhia, Secretary-General and President of the Sweden India Business Council pointed out how the not-for-profit organisation will enable international co-creation at a higher and deeper level to help solve today’s and tomorrow’s challenges using technology in a unique way.

ARTPARK, in collaboration with AI foundry, will run a novel ARTPARK Venture Studio that will mentor technopreneurs who will take the outputs of the mission mode projects to launch new startups.

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NB/KGS/(DST Media Cell)