Budget 2025 FM Exclusive: 'AI Advancing Fast, Focus On Bridging Skill Gap,' Says Sitharaman
As the artificial intellegence race advances at an unprecedented pace, the challenge isn't just its impact on jobs—it's whether the workforce can keep up. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman acknowledged this concern and stated that the government is proactively bridging the gap with targeted skilling initiatives.
"AI will undoubtedly reshape jobs, and training takes time. That's why we launched the PM Internship Scheme in July, giving individuals a year of exposure while industries adjust," Sitharaman told NDTV Profit in an exclusive interview.
India's push for AI comes at a time when the world has entered a race to develop the technology with China's DeepSeek taking on the likes of ChatGPT, OpenAI, Meta AI, Grok and more.
The Union Budget 2025 has provisioning for AI training centers that will host global specialists. "This is a major area of focus, crucial for India's demographic dividend and our economy," Sitharaman said.
AI In Budget 2025
In her eighth consecutive Budget speech, the FM announced the setting up of a Centre of Excellence in AI for education with an outlay of Rs 500 crore. The CoE will focus on innovation in the application of AI technologies in education.
The Budget covered areas such as vocational AI-led apprenticeships, national AI-based skill matching, and project-based assessments to fulfil AI-led industry demand.
The FM talked about creating AI-optimised, 100% renewable, ultra-low-cost energy, along with AI-driven supply chains, and quantum-encrypted logistics, AI-enabled fintech, and AI-native, no-code, high-margin consulting and digital enterprises.
Earlier, the Economic Survey 2025 has also highlighted the crucial need for boosting AI in India.
The survey said, "It will also require appropriate skilling and education for India's youth to take advantage of technological advances such as Artificial Intelligence, enabling its population to stay one step ahead of technological developments. That would minimise or even eliminate the potential adverse impact on employment and, if possible, turn it into a force for augmenting employment. It would require a departure from ‘business as usual' for collaboration between academic institutions and businesses."
Watch The Conversation Here
-
Signature Play: The Classic Cocktail Is Dead. Or Is It?
Classic cocktails are disappearing from India's cocktail menus. But they're still being ordered, taught to bartenders and borrowed from. So, who's really having the last drink?
-
A New Samvat Wishlist: Inclusive Prosperity And Human Development
India has strengthened its economic foundations through infrastructure, digital access and enterprise. Its next growth chapter must deepen productivity, create better livelihoods and widen participation in prosperity.
-
Love, Sex Aur Dhokha: The Audacious Plot To Spy On Jensen Huang
A Taipei dinner, a Singapore chip buyer and a suspected Chinese asset: inside the alleged spy operation that got close to NVIDIA's Jensen Huang.
-
Ten Things I Learnt This Samvat
Patience can be a trap. Cheap stocks can stay cheap. Leverage can wipe you out. What did Samvat 2082 teach us? Niraj Shah writes on 10 lessons from the year gone by.
-
Talking Points This Week: Tech Nerves, FII Buying, And A Faraway Banking Shock
The global markets are not shining this Diwali. The exception in the large markets is, India.
-
Midterm Rally Lasted A Day. The Hard Reality Of A Divided US May Last Two Years | Opinion
Between a contested AI boom, a debt ceiling that arrives in 2027 and a president with every incentive to act alone, the next two years may prove more volatile than the first day's rally suggests.
-
Blue Wave Will Derail the AI Trade but Won't Dismantle the AI Era | Unhedged Position
The Democrats' sweep of the US Congress will see politics collide with economic forces both over the long and short term.
-
It's Time To Take The GST Council's Bet On Trust Global
Payment records can prove India's services exports, and clear, proportionate rules can bring foreign digital sellers into the tax net.
-
Opinion | India at 38: From Innovation Overperformer to Innovation Powerhouse
India now has 453 VC-backed deep science startups, 18 of them late-stage, after 117 percent growth since 2020. Laurus Labs, at USD 9.3 billion, is the most valuable deep science company in any middle-income economy outside China.
