Uttar Pradesh State PCS

• 22 May 2024

Uttar Pradesh Industry 4.0

Why in News?

The Uttar Pradesh nodal technical university has tied up with technology major International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation for Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Cloud computing training to align the future workforce with the modern Industry 4.0 concept.

• The state is also pushing for the ‘One District, One Incubator’ scheme.

Key Points

• With AI investment in India expected to reach USD 5 billion by 2027, the Uttar Pradesh government aims to leverage this expanding industry to boost employment opportunities, encourage self-employment, and promote the growth of startups.
• State’s Abdul Kalam Technical University (AKTU) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with IBM for free online courses in such programmes across more than 500 affiliated colleges.
• According to a joint study released recently by Intel and International Data Corporation, AI spending in India is expected to grow 31.5% from 2023.
  • The growth is highest among the eight countries surveyed — Australia, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan.
• Industry 4.0 refers to the integration of intelligent digital technologies into manufacturing and industrial processes.
  • It covers a set of technologies spanning industrial IoT (internet of things) networks, AI, big data, robotics, automation.
• As the state has the country’s 4th largest startup ecosystem, the government is taking steps to integrate education with incubators and facilitate angel funding to business ideas.
  • It is planning to set up an incubator at every higher educational institution across 75 districts. Currently, over 60 incubators are operational in the state.
  • The state boasts of about 10,000 recognised startups, of which 50% have emerged from Tier-II and Tier-III cities. Nearly 4,300 startups are being run by women entrepreneurs.
• UP is home to eight of the total 108 unicorns in India, such as Paytm, Paytm Mall, India Mart, Moglix, Pine Labs, Innovaccer, InfoEdge, and Physics Wallah.

Unicorn

• A unicorn is any privately owned firm with a market capitalisation of more than USD 1 billion.
• It denotes new entities dedicated to offering creative solutions and new business models, among other things.
• There are several categories like fintech, Edtechs, B2B (Business-to-Business) companies, etc.