Advancements in cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, and other emerging technologies are happening at a rapid pace — changing the nature of jobs faster than before. “While GenAI holds promise for improved decision-making and service delivery in the public sector, employees and employers are aware that a skills gap exists for GenAI,” says Shalini Kapoor, director – India & chief technologist – APJ, Public Sector, AWS. In this interview with Sudhir Chowdhary, she talks about how government entities can unlock the potential of GenAI, challenges around integrating it in their operations, and the need to keep the workforce skilled. Excerpts:
How can GenAI support the public sector, and what’s AWS’s approach to it?
GenAI is impacting all industries, including the public sector. AWS caters to public sector customers like the central, state, and local governments, healthcare, education, nonprofits. There are numerous use cases where GenAI is applied in the public sector, including public-facing websites, virtual agents that ensure citizen services are delivered faster, and securely, while addressing latency requirements commonly experienced in such interactions. There are also domain-specific applications like healthcare and agriculture that leverage knowledge bases.
The recent availability of Amazon Bedrock (ML platform used to build GenAI applications) in the AWS Mumbai region is crucial, particularly for government organisations and those in regulated industries like BFSI. Having Amazon Bedrock in India ensures low latency for customers with critical workloads and maintains data sovereignty within the country, which boosts confidence. By keeping data within India, we are facilitating numerous use cases for public sector organisations.
We are also committed to skills development, helping organisations develop new skills through AWS Skill Builder (online learning centre). AWS announced a $50 million investment recently, designed to help public sector organisations accelerate innovation in support of critical missions, using AWS GenAI and infrastructure.
Any use cases of how AWS GenAI services have made an impact?
Max Life Insurance is one example, where agents use our services to provide better insurance solutions to their customers. Another example is Eka Care, which offers an advanced technology platform to help doctors manage their clinic practices and understand their patients better by tracking medical history and symptoms.
Are you also involved in digital public infrastructure projects in the country?
We are working with EkStep Foundation to democratise Sunbird, an open-source digital infrastructure for resource delivery in education and healthcare. We have bundled this open-source code and deployed it on the AWS cloud, enabling any country to use one-click deployment to create and implement their versions with the help of an implementation partner.
Another initiative is the Modular Open Source Identity Platform (MOSIP), a global DPG for issuing foundational identifications. MOSIP is currently in various stages of adoption in 17 countries, serving over 110 million people.
Additionally, Namma Yatri, a ride-hailing app built on the Beckn protocol, demonstrates our commitment to open mobility. It enables peer-to-peer decentralised networks for pan-sector economic transactions and has scaled to multiple cities in India using AWS.
Tell us about the challenges when it comes to adopting GenAI solutions?
The challenges are two-fold. The first involves data and its preparation. Without proper data pipelines and a thorough understanding of data sources, GenAI outcomes will not be accurate. From a technical standpoint, we deal with existing databases, but GenAI works with vector databases. Integrating these two can be time-consuming, increasing latency and workflow duration. However, closer integration simplifies and accelerates workflows, enhancing efficiency.
The second is skills. Prompt engineering maximises GenAI model accuracy. Asking the right questions, understanding outputs, and ensuring explainability are vital. These skills are essential in all GenAI-related roles. People with AI skills will be increasingly valuable to organisations.
