Chennai: India must become a creator of artificial intelligence rather than just a consumer, Delhi chief minister Rekha Gupta said at Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) on Saturday.Delivering the 41st convocation address in Vellore, she said the Union govt was investing substantially in the fields of semiconductors, computing infrastructure, defence and robotics through the India AI Mission. “The aim is to move beyond consuming AI technology to producing it. This shift will be one of the greatest contributions graduates can make to their state and country,” she added.The Delhi chief minister further said many of society’s problems could be solved if the govt and graduates worked in tandem. She urged the graduating students to take up roles that could help their cities. She also conferred degree certificates on the graduating students. Her son, Nikunj Gupta, was among the graduands.VIT chancellor G Viswanathan said India’s Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in higher education was around 30 %, which the Union govt’s national education policy aims to raise to 50 %. He further said India has over 50 lakh engineering seats, but lags in medical education. “About 22 lakh students appear for the NEET each year, competing for only around 1.3 lakh medical seats nationwide — leaving barely 2,000 to 3,000 seats vacant after allotment. Nearly 1 lakh Indian students go abroad annually to study medicine.”He also referred to friction between governors and state govts over the appointment of vice-chancellors, and added that vice-chancellor posts in at least 17 state universities in Tamil Nadu and more than 13 in Kerala currently were vacant.In all, 11,276 undergraduate and postgraduate students — 7,359 at the undergraduate level and 3,917 at the postgraduate level, received degree certificates on Saturday. Additionally, 781 students received PhD degrees and three received integrated PhD degrees on the occasion.
