The Regional Artificial Intelligence (AI) Impact Conference 2025, one of the flagship regional events leading up to the India AI Impact Summit slated for February 2026, was held today at the State Convention Centre here in Shillong, Meghalaya.
Highlighting Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of democratising technology, Union Minister for the Ministries of Electronics & Information Technology, Information & Broadcasting and Railways, Ashwini Vaishnav said, ‘We are organising the Regional AI Impact conferences throughout the country and in this conference in Shillong, the focus will be on people, planet and progress, which are the three pillars, the three sutras of the AI impact summit.’
The Union Minister, while virtually addressing the Regional AI Impact Conference, spoke on the Central Government’s mission to develop AI in the country. “As a part of this mission, we have allocated 10,300 crore rupees over the past five years. We have created a common computing facility for everybody to get access to AI resources and more than 38,000 Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) have so far been onboarded,” he added. Underscoring the importance of access to AI in order to increase productivity, the Union Minister for MeitY shared that 570 data and AI labs have been set up, out of which 30 have been launched.
He shared that one lab set up at the National Institute of Electronics & Information Technology (NEILIT), Shillong, is in function and two more labs will be set up at ITI (Industrial Training Institute), Shillong and Shillong Polytechnic. Additionally, another lab is in the pipeline at ITI Tura. ‘Our target is to train about 1 million people in AI skills, because that is going to define the employability in future….Overall, the focus is to make sure that every part of the country gets access to this new technology,” he further said.
Organised by the Government of Meghalaya in collaboration with the India-AI Mission under the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India, the Conference has brought together senior government officials, technology leaders, academic experts and innovators to discuss the transformative potential of AI.
