India, July 24 -- The government has established 20 data and AI labs under the India AI Mission's India AI Future Skills pillar and plans to add seven more by the end of this month across Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. It plans to expand the number of these labs to 200 by March 2026 to boost access to AI education and training.

The initiative aims to expand further, with a total of 570 labs in emerging urban centres over the next two years, an Information Technology (IT) ministry official said. "We are looking at training a minimum of 150,000 students with the 120-hour course on data annotation, data science, and data analytics," said the official.

Rs.68.98 lakh per lab will be provided over three years, minister of state for IT Jitin Prasad...