Union home minister Amit Shah on Tuesday urged cyber security agencies to use artificial intelligence (AI) to identify the modus operandi of criminals duping people of their hard-earned money, spreading fake news and abusing women and children online.

Terming cyber security an integral part of national security, he said the country's progress was not possible without ensuring cyber security.

India hosts around 46 per cent or almost half of global digital transactions, making the job of these agencies “challenging”, Shah said while delivering a keynote speech during the first foundation day celebrations of the I4C, or the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre, in the national capital.

The I4C, established in 2018, is a department under the home ministry that is tasked with establishing a national-level coordination centre to address all cyber crime-related issues.

“I would urge you to use artificial intelligence to identify the modus operandi (deployed by criminals).... This will help to find new ways to fight cyber crimes,” the home minister said.

He cited some figures to show how Internet and cyber penetration has increased in the country.

“We have 95 crore Internet users in the country as of March 31 compared to 25 crore during the same period in 2014,” Shah said, adding that in 2014, 600 panchayats were linked to the Internet but this has reached 2.13 lakh now.

The home minister said that in 2024, India saw UPI (Unified Payments Interface) transactions worth about ₹20,64,000 crore, which is 46 per cent of the global digital transactions.