Weather agencies around the world are focussing on AI, which can bring down cost and improve speed, and which Britain's Met Office says could "revolutionise" weather forecasting, with a recent Google-funded model found to have outperformed conventional methods.

Accurate weather forecasting is particularly crucial in India, a country of 1.4 billion people, many impoverished, and the world's second-largest producer of rice, wheat and sugar. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) provides forecasts based on mathematical models using supercomputers. Using AI with an expanded observation network could help generate higher-quality forecast data at lower cost.

The department expects the AI-based climate models and advisories it is developing to help improve forecasts, K.S. Hosalikar, head of climate research and services at IMD, told Reuters. The weather office has used AI to generate public alerts regarding heatwaves and such diseases as malaria, Hosalikar said. It plans to increase weather observatories, providing data down to village level, potentially offering higher-resolution data for forecasts, he said.

The government said on Thursday it wants to generate weather and climate forecasts by incorporating AI into traditional models, and has set up a centre to test the idea through workshops and conferences. "An AI model doesn't require the high cost involved in running a supercomputer - you can even run it out of a good quality desktop," said Saurabh Rathore, an assistant professor at Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi.