AI, new electricity for powering digital economy
Prime Minister Dr. Harini Amarasuriya and Minister Sunil Handunneththi in conversation at the summit. Pic by Indika Handuwala
The best way to understand AI is to think of it as the new electricity because, just like electricity revolutionised every industry over a century ago—from manufacturing and agriculture to healthcare and communication—AI is now becoming the foundational technology reshaping how we live, work, and govern.
It is a general-purpose technology that silently powers countless systems behind the scenes, enabling smarter decisions, increasing efficiencies, and paving the way for entirely new possibilities across every domain, Deputy Minister of Digital Economy, Eranga Weeraratna, delivering the keynote themed the “National AI Strategy, Contributing to Sri Lanka’s Digital Economy”, said at the National AI Expo and Conference held this week at a hotel just outside Colombo.
He also announced that, after months of close collaboration between his ministry and Google, Google has agreed to provide its Student offer, which includes Gemini Advance features and additional benefits, at no cost. This initiative aims to enhance educational resources and opportunities for students in Sri Lanka, reflecting a commitment to supporting their academic growth and access to advanced technological tools.
“This future in Sri Lanka will see integration of AI and data literacy into our national curriculum and launch upskilling programmes to create a truly ‘AI-ready’ workforce. We need to create a space for brilliant ideas to grow. We will foster a vibrant start-up ecosystem through funding, incubators, and regulatory ‘sandboxes’ that allow new ideas to flourish safely. Because sometimes, the biggest breakthroughs come from the boldest experiments. Also, a non-negotiable: no one gets left behind. This new technology must be a bridge, not a wall. It has to work for the shop owner in Galle as much as the tech CEO in Colombo. It must understand our culture and speak our languages. This progress shall belong to every Sri Lankan,” Mr. Weeraratna further said in his address.
On the flipside, powerful tool like AI poses risks such as misinformation, swindling, deepfakes, and cyber-attacks threatening digital infrastructure, necessitating foresight, vigilance, and smart policies to address these challenges. “The National AI Strategy, featuring an Ethical AI Framework, is currently open for public comment, empowering citizens to influence essential regulations,” Mr. Weeraratna. He highlighted that a National Cyber Security Operation Centre (NCSOC) has been recently established to utilise AI against AI-driven threats, complemented by an upcoming Defence Cyber Security Operation Centre to ensure national safety during innovation.
The Ethical AI framework published by the ministry is now open for public comment, he added.
Chairman, Sri Lanka Telecom, Dr. Motilal de Silva, joining in the panel discussion, said that in any AI-related projects, the companies should justify return on investments in terms of customer service, productivity, and operational efficiency enhancements. Successful organisations build their AI business cases around specific use cases with measurable outcomes, he said.
Noting that data management and quality is a challenge, he said, “Though lack of data is not an issue for telecom, lack of usable data is an issue. Our data sits on many islands, such as networks, operations, business support systems, and the call centre. The initial hurdle was ensuring this data was clean, standardised, and accessible for all AI models. Poor quality data leads to unreliable insights. Data governance is a prerequisite for AI governance. With meaningful curated data, a telecom company can easily build data pipelines to automate customer service and network functions.”
Pointing out the human barrier in implementing AI, he said that the lack of skillsets in staff is an issue. Upskilling existing staff is important. In Sri Lanka, voice bots are more than chat bots because 90 per cent of the call centre traffic comes from voice. Dr. De Silva noted that in AI development, it is important to have an AI user dimension.
Dr. Romesh Ranawana, Group Chief Analytics & AI Officer, Dialog Axiata PLC, noted that one cannot create an AI impact overnight and that all stakeholders in a company, such as the board, clients, management and staff, need to be on board with implementing this.
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