Three centres of excellence for artificial intelligence in top educational institutions and 100 labs in engineering institutions for developing applications using 5G services will be set up, Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced on Wednesday.

The finance minister made the announcement in her budget speech in Lok Sabha.

“Three centres of excellence for artificial intelligence will be set up in top educational institutions. Leading industry players will partner in conducting interdisciplinary research, developing cutting edge applications and scalable problem solutions in the areas of agriculture, health, sustainable cities,” she said.

Sitharaman said that a total of 100 labs will be set up in engineering institutions in collaboration with various authorities, regulators, banks and other business for developing applications using 5G services.

“To realise the new range of opportunities, business models and employment potential, the labs will cover, among others, applications such as smart classrooms, precision farming, intelligent transport systems and healthcare applications,” she said.

The finance minister announced that to address learning loss incurred during the pandemic years, a national digital library for children and adolescents will be set up for facilitating availability of quality books across geographies, languages and genres.

As many as 38,000 teachers and support staff to be recruited in the next three years for 740 Eklavya Model Residential Schools serving 3.5 lakh tribal students, she said. To boost medical education, 157 new nursing colleges will be established and new programmes will be introduced for training in medical equipment.

Sitharaman also announced that teachers training will be re-envisioned through innovative pedagogy, curriculum transaction, continuous professional development dipstick survey and ICT implementation.

“Lab grown diamonds is a technology and innovation driven, energy driven sector with high employment potential. To encourage indigenous production of such diamonds, a research grant will be provided to one of the IITs for five years,” she said.

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