Kanpur, Sept. 13 -- Governor Anandiben Patel on Saturday inaugurated the two-day AI Manthan 2.0 at Chhatrapati Shahu Ji Maharaj University (CSJMU) in Kanpur. The event brought together more than 500 experts, academics and officials who said artificial intelligence must move beyond generic applications and be tailored to India's local needs in education, healthcare, agriculture and governance. Organised jointly by Jan Bhavan (formerly Raj Bhavan) and CSJMU, the summit at the university auditorium focused on moving beyond discussions about AI to its practical application in the state's institutions and public systems. The governor emphasised AI-based agricultural solutions, including systems to assess crop losses accurately and ensure appropriate compensation. She advocated a single-window platform to check the quality of seeds and pesticides, monitor crops and provide weather information.An AI platform, Krishi Mitra, is being jointly developed by IIT Kharagpur and CSJMU to analyse crop and soil data and identify assistance needed to improve farmers' productivity. The state's AI roadmap was presented on the occasion. Alok Kumar, principal secretary (IT and electronics), said the UP AI Mission would receive Rs 2,000 crore over five years, with a target of developing talent, infrastructure and trusted AI systems across all 75 districts by 2031. Prof Vinay Kumar Pathak, CSJMU vice-chancellor, said the university was committed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of establishing India as a global AI creator. He highlighted the expansion of the Samarth digital platform, saying around 56 lakh students were now registered on it and over 21 lakh examination results had been processed online. The first edition of AI Manthan had focused largely on building AI awareness and exploring its applications in higher and technical education. This year's edition has widened the discussion to healthcare and agriculture, besides examining AI-based admissions, assessment, career services and institutional management. Prof Manindra Agarwal, the IIT Kanpur director, traced the development of AI from the late 1950s to the present era of generative AI. He said its current prominence was the result of decades of advances in computing, algorithms, neural networks and machine learning. He also stressed responsible governance and rejected pessimistic predictions that humans would inevitably lose control over AI. Prof Partha Pratim Chakrabarti, former IIT Kharagpur director, stressed the need for AI systems that understand India's local languages and social realities. He advocated smaller language models trained on local datasets, which could be particularly useful in agriculture, education and local governance. Healthcare was another major focus. Dr Dinesh MS of Philips India and IIIT Allahabad said AI could assist doctors in medical imaging, early cancer detection and clinical decision-making, but should not replace human judgement. He discussed federated learning, which allows AI models to be trained using data from multiple hospitals while keeping patient information within individual institutions. A parallel healthcare session examined AI-assisted diagnosis, breast cancer screening, radiology and medical education, with experts warning against automation bias and stressing patient safety and clinical accountability. Education experts, meanwhile, called for universities to rethink conventional examinations as students increasingly use AI tools. Prof C Patwardhan of Dayalbagh educational institute said assessment should focus more on capabilities, reasoning and practical skills....