New Delhi, Feb 21 (IANS) As India sees a spurt in startups in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Prime Minister Narendra Modi has a dream that startups in new and emerging technologies should now come from Tier 2 and 3 cities, Minister of State for Electronics and IT, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, said on Wednesday.

These are exciting times for the Indian innovation and startup ecosystem, he said at an event here.

“India, during PM Modi’s Government, has seen tremendous innovation and birth of more than 100 Unicorns (with valuation of $1 billion and above) in the domestic startup ecosystem,” the minister said during the launch of iMPEL-AI (iCreate-Microsoft programme for Emerging Leaders in Artificial Intelligence) here.

The next wave of startups in the country will come from sectors such as AI, semiconductors, Web 3.0 and high-performance computing, he added.

“It is the dream of PM Modi that startups in new and emerging technologies should originate from Tier 2 and 3 cities and the government is fully committed to support the next-generation of innovation," Chandrasekhar noted.

India’s ambitious plan to become a global AI leader will further get a boost with the launch of the iMPEL-AI.

Microsoft India, iCreate (International Centre for Entrepreneurship and Technology), and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) announced the launch of the joint AI innovation programme.

iCreate is India’s leading institution for transforming startups based on tech innovation into successful businesses.

Started in 2012, iCreate is supported by the government of Gujarat and the Centre to facilitate next-generation entrepreneurship.

AI has taken the world by storm and in India, startups in the social impact space have created datasets in several Indian languages to train AI models and for research while creating jobs, mainly in rural areas.