'World Leader In Vaccines, Doing Fantastic Work In Al': Bill Gates Lauds India's Innovation, Leadership

Bill Gates said that a lot of fantastic work is going on in India in the field of Artificial Intelligence.

Bill Gates addresses the students of IIT campus in New Delhi.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates on Thursday said that India is a world leader in vaccines and added that investment is being made in the country for new vaccines.

In an interview with ANI, Bill Gates said, "I'm certainly bullish. You know, the rate of improvement in a lot of the key areas is very, very strong. You know, everyone knows that in vaccines, India's the world's leader, so we're investing with our partners here to come up with lots of new vaccines."

He also said that a lot of fantastic work is going on in India in the field of Artificial Intelligence. He further said the country is poised to do a lot of the leadership work in the sphere.

"Well, there's a lot of fantastic Al work going on in this country. You have innovators like Nandan Nilekani who's taking all that digital work and saying, OK, how does Al make that even better? You have groups like Wadhwani. You have the lIT groups that are very state of the art. In India, there will be a lot of fantastic leadership work in Al here in India. And when it's helping the poorest in areas like health and agriculture, our foundation will be proud to help shape that and support it," he told ANI. 

Earlier in a meeting with Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya, Bill Gates said that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the government of India are working with the private sector to come up with a cost-effective therapy for sickle cell anaemia for the whole world.

The Microsoft co-founder hailed India for providing Covid vaccines to over 150 countries in a time of grave crisis and lauded the country ‘as a global innovator.'

"They've adopted a lot of new vaccines and they've done a great job getting them out to all the kids in the country. So, under five mortalities is a third of what it was at the turn of the century, which was when we first started to work here. So, you know, one third as many children die before the age of five. And the work on vaccines is a big, big part of why India's seen that improvement," he reportedly said.