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In this episode, Rajnish Gupta, Partner, Tax and Economic Policy Group, EY India, explores the central role of data in shaping the AI revolution. He reflects on why data is the foundation for AI, the pivotal role of government in enabling access and setting regulations, and how the private sector can unlock the full potential of its data assets to accelerate India’s AI journey.
Key takeaways:
Data as the foundation: High-quality, accessible data is essential for AI algorithms to perform accurately and deliver meaningful results.
Government’s dual role: As both policymaker and data provider, the government can drive progress through privacy frameworks, non-personal data regulations, and by opening public data platforms.
Corporate responsibility: Businesses must audit, organize, and modernize their vast data reserves—from legacy systems to paper records—to make them AI-ready and ensure reliability.
For your convenience, a full text transcript of this podcast is available on the link below:
Rajnish
Welcome to another exciting episode of the EY.ai Unplugged Series. Today, we are going to talk about the relevance of data in the AI evolution. I am going to cover three things: first, why data is so important; second, the role government can play; and third, what the private sector can do in this journey.
Data is really at the heart of the AI revolution. Without access to data, algorithms cannot be developed. And even if you have a very good algorithm, it will malfunction without quality data. It simply will not deliver accurate results. So data is extremely important. If access to data is missing, the AI revolution will be very constrained.
Rajnish
Governments play an important role in two capacities—first, as policymakers, and second, as providers of data. As policymakers, the Indian government has already introduced privacy regulations. Similarly, on non-personal data, how definitions are framed and how systems are set up to make industry-wise data available will have a huge bearing on the success of AI. It can also help create open platforms that give access to vast amounts of data, much of which currently resides only with the government.
Rajnish
If the government makes this data more widely available through platforms, it will go a long way in driving the AI revolution in India.
Coming to corporates—companies also hold a vast amount of data. They need to audit what data they already have, what they are collecting, what they are not collecting, what lies in legacy systems, and what still exists on paper. The goal should be to bring it all together in a format that can be used for AI, ensuring accuracy and reliability.
Rajnish
So really, how India develops data-related regulations and how data becomes available will define where we ultimately reach on our AI journey.
