The software industry lobby Nasscom is setting up centres of excellence on artificial intelligence (AI) and data sciences for a better understanding on the emerging technologies, a top official has said.

With the tech world getting divided between whether or not to regulate AI, the body feels that technologies should be freely allowed to mature first before any regulation comes in, President R Chandrasekhar has said.

“We are setting up a centre of excellence on AI and data sciences in Bengaluru and Hyderabad. They will look at mapping the resources available in the country, promoting start-ups in that area and also best practices globally, including regulatory aspects,” he told PTI recently.

He, however, did not offer the investment that will go into these proposed centres nor a timeline as to when the first centre of excellence will be functional.

When sought his views on regulation of technologies, he said, “in the new-age technologies, regulation is important but it need not always precede the advent of technology as technology is evolving so quickly that regulation has only to keep pace with that.”

It can be noted that the tech world has been vertically divided over the aspect of regulation, with Tesla founder Elon Musk pitching for regulation, while Facebook’s Mark Zuckerburg opposing it.

“Whichever side you are on, the time has not come to make laws which will guide behaviour of robots and create an IPC (Indian Penal Code) for robots,” Chandrashekhar quipped.

He said we have been too pessimistic because of the advent of new technologies and its impact on the sector, which gets US revenues of upwards of $150 billion and creates 4 million direct jobs.