Science for Scale

Abstract: Sustainability means many things to many people but India has made very specific Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement to be achieved by 2030. These include a climate friendlier path to economic development, reducing it’s GDP’s emissions by 45%, domestic and new & additional funds to implement actions, and build capacities with a framework for technology diffusion and joint collaborative R&D.  With it’s presidency of G20 in 2023, this topic is under the spotlight for awareness, investment, and action. In keeping with the theme of the “Science for Scale” Summit organised by IBM India celebrating 25 years of industrial research in the country, we are bringing together thought leaders from government, academia, and industry to discuss and debate one key question: “What additional goals and enabling mechanisms are needed to support our NDCs keeping our country’s scale in mind supported by computing technology primarily with data and AI?”. The session will include keynotes from XXX and YYY and a panel including a variety of fields and breadth of experiences all geared toward answering this key question. Immediately after the session we will publish a public position paper from the ensuing dialogue that captures the thoughts of the participants and charts a draft roadmap bringing policy, research, and enterprise thought together under the sustainability umbrella for the country with a computing technology underpinning.

Hosts: Ashwin Mahalingam (IIT Madras),Shantanu Godbole (IBM Research) Speakers:  TBA

Abstract: It is estimated that by 2025, 75% of data will be processed. outside the traditional data center  or cloud. The proliferation of smart devices in industrial as well as personal spaces together with 5G adoption, is accelerating this transition and the growth of Edge computing. India, with its ubiquitous access to smart phones, cheap cellular communication, and excellent technical talent, is uniquely empowered to innovate as well as stretch the limits of scale of 5G and Edge computing. 5G is expected to deliver $150 billion in additional GDP for India by 2040. This session will bring together leading experts in India from academia, industry and government in a dialogue to unravel the most impactful use cases of the technology, the important research challenges that need to be addressed, and the ecosystem and policy frameworks that are needed to catalyze adoption. It will aim to identify economic, social, skilling, and governance use cases where adoption can reach nation-scale, and evaluate the constraints and opportunities they pose. It will explore how cutting-edge technologies in AI, Hybrid Cloud, Networking and Security need to be adapted and scaled for use in these identified scenarios from an Edge computing context. An objective of this session is to publish a combined point of view, identify venues for incremental value creation for Indian industry and society, lay down an ambitious set of goals for the community over the next 5 years and provide guidance on how we can get there.

Hosts: Abhay Karandikar (IIT Kanpur), Praveen Jayachandran (IBM Research) Speakers: Giovanni Pacifici (VP Hybrid Cloud, IBM Research), Yogesh Simhan (IISc)

Abstract:  The Digital India initiative has established India as a leader in digitalising governance, citizen services, and financial services. The “India Stack” is intended to provide scalable and secure layer for identity, transactions, and data. At the same time, India is also in the process of establishing critical infrastructure in several areas like communication, healthcare, transportation, and power infrastructure. India poses unique challenges in terms of scale, average user awareness of privacy and security issues, risks of fraud and disenfranchisement, and skepticism of adoption. These aspects require the scientists, technologists, and policy makers to advance their respective state of the art in novel, scalable, and cost-effective ways. A parallel development on a global scale is the widespread adoption of cloud computing (that has given rise to architectures that are not tested as robustly for security as traditional systems), e-commerce, and digitalisation of services like transportation, communication, and energy. Therefore, there is a massive explosion of the privacy and security threats to all the economies — in terms of scale, vulnerable system components exposed to the adversaries, and attack methods. This session will focus on the challenges that need to be addressed to make India adopt digitalisation safely and at scale. It will focus on the opportunities it provides India to emerge as the world leader in security and privacy technologies and implementation. 

Hosts: Debdeep Mukhopadhyay (IIT KGP), Vinayaka Pandit (IBM Research) Speakers: Mukul Joshi (Trust Lab@IIT Bombay), M M Prabhu(Wipro) 

Abstract: India is on the brink of a significant opportunity for both economic growth and improved well-being for its citizens. The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) holds tremendous potential for realizing this opportunity and addressing many of the country's most pressing challenges. The adoption and scaling of AI in India would bring a significant impact and present numerous benefits across industries such as healthcare, finance, and transportation.  In this session, we will bring together leading experts from academia, industry and Government and delve into the opportunities and  challenges faced by Indian enterprises, startups, and government entities in deploying and realizing these benefits through the implementation of AI technologies. We will examine the actions already taken by industry, academia, and government, and explore further steps that need to be taken. We will also discuss how India can build upon its vast AI skilled resource and breakthrough to be a leader in research and innovation in this space. A key objective of this session is to come up with a combined and coherent point of view on opportunities and challenges for adoption of AI in India and to further identify a set of steps that would act as catalyst for its wider adoption across India.

Hosts: Pushpak Bhattacharya (IIT Bombay), Sachin Joshi (IBM Research), Sameep Mehta(IBM Research)

Speakers: Partha Talukar (Staff Research Scientist@Google Research/Faculty IISc), Ullas Nambiar (Managing Director, Accenture), Vivek Raghavan (EkStep), Debdoot Mukerjee(Head of AI, Meesho), Mohit Kumar (Head of Data Science, Udaan)

Abstract: The Objective of Quantum in India: Navigating forward to Scale is to Develop/steer PoV for India in Quantum, in four quadrants, Workforce & Enablement, R&D, Economic Dev & Industry and Quantum Services & Infrastructure as 4 sessions. Quantum computing is expected to have a major impact on society and the world economy. The unique power of future quantum computers could provide solutions to major societal challenges such as energy, health, climate, and security. A quantum race has begun all over the world. Asian and Western governments are rolling out strategic plans with substantial funding. This session will bring together the leaders from the quantum ecosystem in India to brainstorm and provide a clear roadmap forward

Hosts: Anindita Banerjee (CDAC), L V Venkat Subramaniam (IBM Research)

Speakers: Anil Prabhakar (IIT Madras), Apoorva Patel (IISc), Yogesh Simhan (IISc)