Govt to set up seven centres of excellence for fintech, augmented reality, IoT

The government will soon set up seven new centres of excellence including one in Chennai for fintech and in Bhubaneshwar for augmented reality.

Minister of IT and Electronics Ravi Shankar Prasad asked all the states to strengthen their measures for cybersecurity in the wake of India moving towards a digital cashless economy.

Another internet of things agriculture centre in Gurugram and a centre of excellence centre in medical electronics in Lucknow.

He was speaking after a two-day conference of state IT ministers in the national capital.

A roadmap to make India a $1 trillion economy by 2025 was also discussed during the meeting besides Aadhaar and Digital India.

Sources present in the meeting said that about 40% cyber attacks including ransomware, phishing and others are targetted at financial institutions and banks. It is estimated that out of 2.3 billion online transactions, about 0.15 billion were breached. This includes financial as well as other internet-related interactions. This was told to the minister during the closed-door meeting.

About 31 states participated in the conclave.

"To be $1-trillion economy, we need effective decisions and we have discussed around artificial intelligence (AI) and emerging technologies, as they are important for the expansion of 'Digital India' programme," the minister said.

Prasad also told states to ensure that no one is denied any benefits for not having Aadhaar.

According to available information, the digital economy currently stands at around $413 billion. The ministry expects Information technology (IT) and IT enabled services (ITeS) sector to grow to $350 billion by 2025 from $160 billion, while the electronics sector is likely to touch $300 billion by the same time (from $100 billion now).

Telecom and e-commerce are projected to grow to $150 billion each while sharing economy and digital skilling presents a $30 billion opportunity.

GOING DIGITAL

• To set up seven centres of excellence— one in Chennai for fintech, in Bhubaneshwar for augmented reality
   
• An IoT agriculture centre in Gurugram, a centre of excellence in medical electronics to be set up in Lucknow