India bets on ‘sealed rooms’ to train AI on sensitive data without exposing it

New Delhi/Bengaluru: India on Friday showcased a system that allows companies and researchers to train artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms on sensitive data held by hospitals, banks and government agencies without the information leaving those institutions or being exposed to them.

The Data Empowerment and Protection Architecture (DEPA) for AI Training framework was launched by the ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY) and developed primarily by iSPIRT, a volunteer-led technology think-tank that has contributed to the development of India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and India Stack, a set of digital public infrastructure systems that enable services such as digital identity (Aadhaar), payments and the secure sharing of data (DigiLocker).