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India has launched a 10,000-crore Al Mission, an initiative aimed at developing domestic Al infra- structure and fuelling industry growth. The mission, which could soon take shape, kicked off with a tender for graphics processing units (GPUs), released last month. A pre-bid meeting hosted by the IT minis- try saw participation from heavyweights like Nvidia, Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, Microsoft Azure, AWS, Google Cloud, and Palo Alto Networks. Generative Al (GenAI) is reshaping global economies, with nations scrambling to leverage this transformative technology for economic and productivity gains. This has spurred the rise of ‘sovereign Al’, a concept that underscores a nation’s ability to develop artificial intelligence (AI) using its own infrastructure, training and research. ET’s Kumari Rajlakshmi Singh & Dia Rekhi take a look at how countries around the world are investing in Al to build sovereign capabilities.
United States
The US has a plan in place to form the US National Al R&D Strategic Plan. Updated in 2023, it outlines the federal government’s roadmap for Al R&D
$3.3 billion Govt’s spending on Al and ML in FY23
- $75 billion-US Federal IT Budget proposed for 2025
- Up from $1.38 billion spent in 2018: Stanford University report
This reflects a 140% increase over this period
European Union
The EU announced a national plan for Al investment called the ‘Al Innovation Strategy’. It includes a public and private investment package of around €4 billion through 2027
It intends to create ‘Al Factories’ across the EU
The EU has enacted the Al Act to establish a comprehensive legal framework for Al
United Kingdom
Cambridge University, Intel and Dell collaborated to build Dawn, the UK’s fastest Al-capable super- computer
The UK unveiled plans to spend over $125 million on research and training related to Al
The govt said it will launch nine new Al research hubs across the UK
China
Chinese government VC funds invested in 9,623 unique firms in the Al space via 20,000 transactions over 2000-2023, totalling $184 billion: National Bureau of Economic Research
117-GenAl prod- ucts approved by China’s Cyberspace Administration as of March 2024
At least, 262 startups are competing to bring out GenAl products in China
Canada
The country’s Budget 2024 announced $2.4 billion over five years to launch a new Al Compute Access Fund and a Canadian Al Sovereign Compute Strategy
This will provide Canadian Al firms with the tools needed to be competitive in a rapidly advancing global landscape
The Budget also pro- posed $50 million to create an Al Safety Institute of Canada
South Korea
The South Korean government plans to invest $6.94 billion in Al by 2027
This will help the country retain an edge in the semi- conductor industry and develop Al chips
Japan
The Japanese government has allocated approximately $740 million to subsidise the Al computing industry
It is collaborating with Nvidia to upskill its workforce, support Japanese language model development and expand Al adoption for natural disaster response
Middle East
Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund is in talks with top Silicon Valley VCS to create a $40 billion fund for Al startups
$2.5 billion- Incentives announced by Qatar to help grow Al, tech and innovation
UAE’s G42 has secured a $1.5 billion investment from Microsoft
Dubai approved the appointment of 22 chief Al officers to key government departments to drive a high-tech vision for the future
Source: GWFM Research & Study
