India Needs to Strengthen its AI Ecosystem: KSUM CEO Anoop Ambika

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM:
India should be focusing more on improving its in-house AI ecosystem by investing more in training its own language models and applications, Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM) CEO Anoop Ambika said here today.

“According to a recent study, around US$ 40-50 billion are being invested into the AI landscape worldwide, of which India’s contribution is only 1.5 billion dollars. Like in every technology sector, we are being dependent on USA and China in AI innovations also,” he pointed out.

Anoop was inaugurating Technopark-based company Speridian Technologies’ One AI Hackathon 2025 here.

Noting that India AI Mission and Bhashini promote AI innovations in the country, he said, “We are still lagging behind in AI ecosystem. We need to think big and come up with ideas to develop our own language models and AI applications.”

Events like Sperdion’s Hackathon 2025 can be a pointer to Kerala’s potential in AI, he added.

“The Speridian One AI hackathon is part of Speridian’s ambitious One AI initiative, aimed at harnessing Speridian’s internal AI capabilities while promoting local talents and Startups in the AI space.” said Biju Rakesh, COO, Speridian India.

K P Hari, co-founder and CFO of Speridian Technologies; Chandra Vempati, Sr VP Speridian Technologies and Biju Rakesh, COO, Speridian, India, were present at the function.

Speridian Hackathon 2025 saw the participation of 18 teams, including 11 engineering colleges from Kerala and seven Kerala-based startups, which had to come up with innovative AI-based solutions for real-time issues faced by customers in banking, financial, healthcare and manufacturing sectors.

“The efforts put in by the participants for this Hackathon will be a learning curve for them as they get hands-on experience with industry grade problem statements,” Hari said.

The winning team of the Hackathon from the engineering college category will get Rs 1.5 lakh as prize money while runners up will receive Rs 75,000. The winning team from the startup category will get Rs 2 lakh and runners up will receive Rs 1.25 lakh as prize money. All participants will receive Rs 10,000 as competing prize.

With over 640 clients globally, Speridian has presence in over 10 countries with its headquarters in USA. An information technology consulting and services company, it has a proven track record of solving business challenges with their unique, industry-based consultative approach across various sectors, including healthcare, insurance, real estate, and manufacturing.

The runner-up team in the college category prototype leveraged Generative AI to analyze insurance denial letters and auto-generate persuasive appeal drafts by integrating patient diagnosis, treatment history, and denial codes. It demonstrated real-time extraction of denial reasons and contextual argument-building, reducing appeal drafting time from hours to minutes. This breakthrough aims to recover millions in unclaimed reimbursements by empowering faster, smarter appeals.

Udhay Krishna, Joel Biju of Ugenix Technologies LLP came out runners up in startup category and received a cash prize of 1.25 lakhs while Gifton Tom Biju, R Vaishnav Raj of Tomatrix Technologies Pvt. Ltd won the third prize in this category who received Rs 50,000 as cash prize.

All participants received Rs 10,000 as competing prize.

With over 640 clients globally, Speridian has presence in over 10 countries with its headquarters in USA. An information technology consulting and services company, it has a proven track record of solving business challenges with their unique, industry-based consultative approach across various sectors, including healthcare, insurance, real estate, and manufacturing.