An AI & Robotics Technologies Park (ARTPARK) set up in Bengaluru will promote technology innovations in AI (Artificial Intelligence) & Robotics leading to societal impact by executing ambitious mission mode R&D projects in healthcare, education, mobility, infrastructure, agriculture, retail and cyber-security focusing on problems unique to India.

ARTPARK, is a unique not-for-profit foundation established by Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru with support from AI Foundry in a public-private model. With seed funding of Rs 170 crore ($22 mn) from Department of Science & Technology (DST), Govt of India, under the National Mission on Inter-disciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems (NM-ICPS), it will bring about collaborative consortium of partners from industry, academia and government bodies.

"Generous additional support of the Government of Karnataka to the ARTPARK Hub brings extraordinary value in increasing its effectiveness, reach and use. It also sets a template of centre-state partnership in the frontier areas of technology-- a theme which will receive focus in the soon to be released Science, Technology and Innovation Policy 2020", said Professor Ashutosh Sharma, Secretary, DST at the launch of the ARTPARK recently.

"Indian academia has been carrying out cutting edge technology research in various domains. However, we have had systemic issues in moving the results of this research from university laboratories into the outside world. ARTPARK would go a long way in establishing a template for addressing this need," Prof Govindan Rangarajan, Director, IISc pointed out.

"These moonshots will not only enable India but also build technology solutions for the six billion people in the developing world," Umakant Soni, Co-founder & CEO noted.

ARTPARK will develop AI & Robotics facilities to support technology innovations as well as capacity building through advanced skills training of students and professionals in these areas. Some of these facilities will be key enablers for whole new sets of technologies, products and services. It will develop DataSetu - that will enable confidentiality and privacy-preserving framework to share data and run analytics spurring the data-sharing ecosystem and create a data marketplace, boosting AI applications and solutions.