NEW DELHI: India is discussing age-based restrictions with social media companies, IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said Tuesday, following moves by Australia and other countries to ban young teens from popular platforms.
Vaishnaw, speaking at the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, also said stronger rules were needed on deepfakes, while hailing an expected $200 billion in AI investment over the next two years.
Australia has since December required TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat and a host of other top social media services to remove accounts held by under-16s, or face heavy fines.
Last month, French lawmakers passed a bill that would ban social media use for under-15s, which awaits a Senate vote before becoming law.
"This is something which has now been accepted by many countries that age-based regulation has to be there," Vaishnaw told reporters at the AI Impact Summit.
"Right now we are in a conversation regarding deepfakes, regarding age-based restrictions with the various social media platforms and... what is the right way to go about this," he said.
A minister in Andhra Pradesh had previously said it was preparing the ground for a ban on children using social media, but Vaishnaw's remarks are the first indication of national action from the world's most populous country.
India last week tightened rules regulating artificial intelligence technology, requiring social media platforms to clearly label AI content and comply with takedown requests by authorities within three hours.
"We need much stronger regulation on deepfakes," Vaishnaw said Tuesday.
"It's a problem which is growing day by day. And certainly there is a need for protecting our children, protecting our society from these harms."
Big investments
The five-day AI Impact Summit kicked off on Monday, with nearly 20 world leaders and dozens more ministerial delegations set to discuss big issues from job disruption to AI's environmental impact.
Organisers highlight this year's AI summit, the fourth in an annual series of international gatherings focused on the fast-evolving technology, as the first hosted by a developing country.
Vaishnaw said Tuesday that India expected more than $200 billion in investments over the next two years, including roughly $90 billion already committed.
Separately, India's Adani Group said Tuesday it plans to invest $100 billion by 2035 to develop "hyperscale AI-ready data centres", a boost to New Delhi's push to become a global AI hub.
The investment would catalyse an additional $150 billion in spending across "server manufacturing, advanced electrical infrastructure, sovereign cloud platforms and supporting industries", it said.
Last year India leapt to third place -- overtaking South Korea and Japan -- in an annual global ranking of AI competitiveness calculated by Stanford University researchers.
But despite plans for large-scale infrastructure and grand ambitions for innovation, experts say the country has a long way to go before it can rival the United States and China.
As part of efforts to expand computing capacity, Vaishnaw said the government has already deployed 13,000 graphics processing units (GPUs) under its common compute programme and will place orders within a week for another 20,000 GPUs, which are expected to be installed within six months.
The expansion, he said, was part of a "constant endeavour to provide high-quality resources to our startups, researchers and students".
Also in attendance at the summit will be tech CEOs including Sam Altman of OpenAI and Google's Sundar Pichai, as well as Microsoft tycoon Bill Gates.
Indian media had reported that Gates' appearance had been cancelled over his mention in the Epstein files, but a Gates Foundation spokesperson told AFP that he was attending and "will be delivering his keynote as scheduled".
Vaishnaw declined to comment on the withdrawal of Nvidia boss Jensen Huang from the summit.