Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday announced an outlay of 8,000 crore over the next five years on national mission on quantum technologies, while emphasising on the importance of leveraging artificial intelligence, data analytics, and internet of things for digital governance.

Data centre parks will be set up in India with the help of private sector, she said. The budget also allocated 6,000 crore for Bharat Net and said 1 lakh gram panchayats will get fibre to home connections under Bharat Net scheme in one year.

Policy on private sector building data centre parks is an exciting opportunity for fintech companies. This is also in line with the governments policy on retaining critical data within the country," said Sanjay Khan, partner, Khaitan & Co.

Maninder Bharadwaj, partner, Deloitte India said the emphasis of government on data and digitisation is clearly highlighted in this budget. Building of data centers, collection of nutritional information from 10 crore households and focus on fiber optic networks are initiatives that will propel India towards a digital journey," he added.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning featured extensively in the ministers speech with proposal to use it in various existing and future projects such as the proposed national policy for statistics and the Ayushman Bharat scheme.

While the government had previously set up a national portal for AI research and development, in the latest announcement, the government has continued to offer its support for tech advancements. We appreciate the governments emphasis on promoting cutting-edge technologies in India," Atul Rai, co-founder & CEO of Staqu said in a statement.

Governments across the world have been laying emphasis on use of AI for digital governance. As per reports, US government intends to spend almost $1 billion in AI-related research and development in 2020.

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Budget 2020: Govt bets on AI, data analytics and quantum computing - Livemint

Quantum Computing Inc () CEO Robert Liscouski tells Proactive the technology company has released its Mukai quantum application development platform, featuring a software stack ready to solve extremely complex optimization problems.

Liscouski says applications like Mukai are necessary to drive business value, as it ultimately gives access to end-users using quantum computing.

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Quantum Computing releases its new software application called Mukai - Proactive Investors USA & Canada

COMPUTING

Alphabet Has a Second Secretive Quantum Computing TeamTom Simonite | Wired[Alphabets moonshot incubator Xs]small group of quantum researchers is not building its own quantum computing hardware. The groups leader is more interested in creating new algorithms and applications to run on quantum computers, and building software libraries that allow conventional coders to use the exotic machines.

Japan Is Building a Giant Gundam Robot That Can WalkEvan Ackerman | IEEE SpectrumGundam Factory Yokohama, which is a Gundam Factory in Yokohama, is constructing an 18-meter-tall, 25-ton Gundam robot. The plan is for the robot to be fully actuated using a combination of electric and hydraulic actuators, achieving Gundam-like movement with its 24 degrees of freedom.

How to Turn Garbage Into GrapheneCourtney Linder | Popular MechanicsThe new process, which is called flash graphene production, yields bulk quantities of graphene flakes. Not only does this technique produce far more graphene than traditional methods, but its also way cheaper and greener, upcycling food waste, plastic, and even coal into a valuable carbon allotrope used in various branches of material science.

Mammoth Biosciences Aims to Be Illumina for the Gene Editing GenerationJonathan Schieber | TechCrunchYou will need a full toolbox of CRISPR proteins, says [Trevor Martin, Mammoth Biosciences co-founder and chief executive]. That will allow you to interact with biology in the same way that we interact with software and computers. From first principles, companies will programmatically modify biology to cure a disease or decrease risk for a disease.'

Will You Still Need a College Education in 2040?Anisa Purbasari Horton | Fast Company[Six experts] shared the consensus that change is the only certainty. Workers, employers, and education providers alike need to be agile, flexible, and prepared to adapt as technology continues to disrupt industries and change what jobs will and will not be available. Heres what else they had to say.

This Is the Highest-Resolution Photo of the Sun Ever TakenNeel V. Patel | MIT Technology ReviewThe new image demonstrates the telescopes potential power. It shows off a surface thats divided up into discrete, Texas-size cells, like cracked sections in the desert soil. You can see plasma oozing off the surface, rising high into the solar atmosphere before sinking back into darker lanes. [Note: The referenced photo appears in this articles banner image.]

A History ofStar Treks Uneasy Relationship With AndroidsJames Whitbrook | io9Sci-fi has been fascinated with sentient synthetic life sinceits earliest days, butStar Trek, in particular, has had quite the tumultuous history with its own consideration of androids and their place in its far future. From classic interpretations of sinister bots to one of the franchises most beloved characters, heres everything you need to know aboutStar Treksandroids.

Technology Is AnthropologyJon Evans | TechCrunchIts hard enough getting an accurate answer of how a person would use a new technology when thats the only variable. When they live in a constantly shifting and evolving world of other new technologies, when the ones which take root and spread have a positive-feedback-loop effect on the culture and mindset toward new technologies, and when every one of your first 20 interactions with new tech changes your feelings about itits basically impossible.

Image Credit: NSO/AURA/NSF

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This Week's Awesome Tech Stories From Around the Web (Through February 1) - Singularity Hub

In recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) has become the talk of the town. No forum seems to be complete without talking about how technology is going to impact the world.

In a conversation with Professor Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of World Economic Forum, Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet shared some valuable insights on the age of AI, the future of the open web, and technology's impact on society at the recently concluded WEF summit at Davos, Switzerland.

While several may argue that technology is negatively impacting the world by taking away jobs and comprising the safety and security of individuals, Pichai calls himself a technology optimist and believes that despite its disadvantages, AI has great potential in reforming the world from climate to healthcare.

Credit: World Economic Forum

Edited excerpt from the interview:

Professor Klaus Schwab (PKS) - Welcome Sundar Pichai. My first question is, you have called yourself a technology optimist, and we hear a lot of concerns about technologies. What makes you an optimist?

Sundar Pichai (SP) - What makes me a technology optimist?I think it's more about how I got introduced to technology. Growing up, I think, I had to wait for a long time before I got my hands on either a telephone or television when it came to our household. I discreetly remember how it changed our lives. TV allowed me access to world news, football, and cricket. So I always had this first-hand experience of how gaining access to technology changes people's lives.

Later on, I was inspired by the One Laptop per Child project, where the school was giving $100 laptops to children. They quite didn't get there. But I think it was a very inspiring goal and made a lot of progress in the industry. Later, we were able to make progress with Android. Each year, millions of people get access to computing for the first time. We do this with low-cost affordable Chromebooks. And seeing the difference it has made in people's lives, it gives me great hope for the path ahead. And more recently with AI, just in the last month, we have seen how it can help doctors better detect breast cancer with more accuracy.

We also launched a better rainfall prediction app. Over time, AI can play a role in climate change. So when you see these examples firsthand, I'm clear-eyed about the risks with technology. But the biggest risk with AI may be failing to work on it and make more progress with it because it can impact billions of people.

PKS - Can you explain what we can expect from quantum computing?

SP - Its an extraordinarily important milestone we achieved last year, something thats known in the field as quantum supremacy. It is when you can take quantum computers and they can do something which classical computers cannot. To me, nature at a fundamental level works in a quantum way. At a subatomic level, things can exist in many different states at the same time. Classical computers work in ones and zeros, so we know that's an imperfect way to simulate nature. Nature works differently. What's exciting about quantum computing and why we are so excited about the possibilities is it will allow us to understand the world more deeply. We can simulate nature better. So that means simulating molecular structures to discover better drugs, understanding the climate more deeply to predict weather patterns and tackle climate change, etc. We can design better batteries, nitrogen fixation the process by which we make the world's fertilisers, and accounts for two percent of carbon emissions. And the processes have not changed for a long time because it's very complicated.

Quantum computers will allow us the hope that we can make that process more efficient. So it's very profound. We've all been dealing in technology with the end of Moore's law. It's revolutionised in the past 40 years, but it's levelled off. So when I look at the future and say how do we drive improvements, quantum will be one of the tools in our arsenal by which we can keep something like Moore's Law continuing to evolve. The potential is huge and we'll have challenges. But in five to 10 years, quantum computing will break encryption as we know it today. But we can work around it. We need to do quantum encryption. There are challenges as always with any evolving technology. But I think the combination of AI and quantum will help us tackle some of the biggest problems we see.

PKS - And also to a certain extent, genetics. I think quantum computing and biology will have great potential positive or negative impacts.

SP - The positive one, as you're saying, rightly is to simulate molecules, protein folding, etc. It's very complex today. We cannot do it with classical computers. So with quantum computers, we can. But we have to be clear about all these powerful technologies. And this is why I think we need to be deliberate and regulate technologies like AI, and as a society, we need to engage in it.

PKS - And this leads me to the next question, actually because in an editorial in the Financial Times, which I read just before the annual meeting, you stated and I quote, Google's whole starts with recognising the need for a principle and regulated approach for applying artificial intelligence. What does it mean?

SP - You know, I've said this before that AI is one of the most profound things we are working on as humanity. It's more profound than fire, electricity, or any of the other bigger things we have worked on. It has tremendous positive sides to it. But it has real negative consequences. When you think about technologies like facial recognition, it can be used to benefit. It can be used to find missing people, but it can (also) be used for mass surveillance. And as democratic countries with a shared set of values, we need to build on those values and make sure when we approach AI we're doing it in a way that serves society. And that means making sure AI doesn't have a bias that we build and test it for safety. We make sure that there is a human agency that is ultimately accountable to people.

About 18 months ago, we published a set of principles under which we would develop as Google. But it's been very encouraging to see the European Commission has identified AI and sustainability as their top priorities. And the US put out a set of principles last week. And, be it the OECD or G20, they're all talking about this, which I think is very encouraging. And I think we need a common framework by which we approach AI.

PKS - How do you see Google in five years from now?

SP - We know we will do well, only if others do well along with us. That's how Google works today through search. We help users reach the information they want including businesses and businesses grow along with search. In the US, last year, we created $335 billion of economic opportunity. And that's true in every country around the world. We think with Alphabet, there's a real chance to take a long-term view and work on technology which can improve people's lives. But we won't do it alone. In many other bets, which we are working on where we can, we take outside investments. These companies are independent, so you can imagine we'll do it in partnerships with other companies. And Alphabet gives us the flexibility to have different structures for different areas in a way we need them to fix healthcare, and we can deeply partner with other companies. Today, we partner with the leading healthcare companies as we work on these efforts.

So we understand for Alphabet to do well, we inherently need to do it in a way that works with other companies, creating an ecosystem around it. This is why last year, just through our venture arm, we invested in over 100 companies. We are just investors in these companies, and they're going to be independent companies. We want them to thrive and succeed. And so, you know, that's the way we think about it. But I think it gives us a real chance to take a long-term view, be it self driving cars or AI.

PKS - So last question. You said you are an optimist. When you wake up at night and you cannot sleep anymore, what worries you at some time?

SP - You were pretty insightful. That is true. Yeah, I do wake up at night. What worries me at night? I think technology has a chance to transform society for the good, but we need to learn to harness it to work for society's good. But I do worry that we turn our backs on technology. And I worry that when people do that they get left behind too. And so to me, how do you do it inclusively? I was in Belgium and I went to MolenGeek, a startup incubator in Molenbeek. In that community, you see people who may not have gone to school, but when you give them access to digital skills, they're hungry for it. People want to learn technology and be a part of it. That's the desire you see around the world when we travel. When I go to emerging markets, it's a big source of opportunity. And so I think it's our duty and responsibility to drive this growth inclusively. And that keeps me up at night.

(Edited by Suman Singh)

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AI has great potential in transforming the world: Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai - YourStory

In her Budget 2020 speech presented in the Parliament, union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman proposed a government scheme that will boost the manufacturing of cell phones and electronic equipment in India. The announcement comes as an extension of the governments flagship 'Make in India programme that, FM says, will encompass major disruptions in the countrys tech domain. Mobile phone manufacturing is a crucial sector that needs robust regulations and provisions to attract more foreign players, which ultimately impacts over 800 million consumers.

Sitharaman said the details on the scheme will be announced soon. We can expect more waive-offs on the import duty that is currently levied on components such as smartphone and television displays. The unnamed scheme will also boost the production of electronic equipment and semiconductors that are integral for the assembly for consumer-end devices such as mobile phones, tablets, televisions, and more.

Currently, mobile phone manufacturers such as Samsung, Oppo, and Xiaomi have begun producing their smartphones locally, as opposed to mere device assembly earlier. Other players are following the move to escape the heavy taxes imposed on imported electronic items. Local manufacturing units also create more employment in the country something that is another major focus area of the central government. Not only the domestic manufacturing of mobile phones, but the government also wants the companies to aggressively venture into R&D within the country.

Nothing is certain right now, at least not until the government comes out with the proposed policy. But if Apple starts ramping up manufacturing of the iPhone in India, the device is bound to get cheaper. Other phones that are manufactured in India will also likely get cheaper but the impact, in relative terms, can be significant on the iPhone because the way Apple pegs the Dollar-Rupee rate. In Apple calculation this rate is often more than Rs 90.

Domestic manufacturing of mobile phones has also been fruitful for some companies, including Apple, in India. Contrary to its earlier position in Indian smartphone market, Apple now enjoys a share of 4 per cent, which is significantly higher, thanks to the local production of the companys hit mobile phone iPhone XR.

Wistron, the company that possesses the contract to manufacture the iPhone for Apple, opened its third facility in India in a bid to ramp up the production. Another Apple supplier Salcomp is taking over Nokias closed facility in Chennai to scale up manufacturing. The iPhone models such as iPhone 6S, iPhone XR are now made in India, however, most intricate parts are still imported.

Producing iPhone locally has led to frequent price drops on iPhone units ensuring affordability something that a major chunk of Indian customers has always demanded. iPhone XR is available for as low as Rs 42,990 in India, which is on par with the pricing of smartphones from companies such as OnePlus and Samsung.

Besides, Apple has been in talks with the government to open its retail stores in India to proliferate into the consumer segment that shops products offline. A recent report has claimed that Apple is ready to launch its online marketplace in India, in competition to its partner websites such as Flipkart and Amazon.

While the union budget dealt largely with weightier issues like health, education and defence, the finance minister in her speech also touched upon some topics that would be of interest to people who read tech news. One of these topics is quantum computing, a new emerging form of computing that a number of countries and companies are researching. The minister in her speech said that India will allocate Rs 8000 crore in the next five years in areas related to quantum computing research. For now quantum computing remains a research topic in labs across the world, although Google recently said that it has managed to create a quantum computer that can do real-world calculations. Challenges, however, remain and so far there is no commercial application of quantum computing.

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Budget 2020: New scheme to boost local manufacturing of mobiles, will iPhone get cheaper now? - India Today