Telangana Takes Initial Steps to Become India's AI Hub
HYDERABAD: Telangana is making strides towards becoming a major hub for artificial intelligence (AI) by introducing a new AI curriculum in government schools. Jayesh Ranjan, Special Chief Secretary of the IT Department, revealed at the Global AI Summit on Thursday that the state is in the process of selecting an agency to help develop this curriculum. The plan includes integrating AI education into the Class 6 curriculum and beyond, with some components being developed in-house to form a detailed implementation strategy.
At the summit, Telangana announced it has signed 26 Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) with major tech companies such as NVIDIA, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon Web Services, as well as academic institutions, startups, and non-profit organizations.
Microsoft has committed to training 50,000 secondary school students, 10,000 vocational students, 20,000 industry professionals, and 50,000 government officials in AI, digital productivity, and cybersecurity through its “Advantage Telangana” initiative.
In addition, Telangana has entered a three-year partnership with NVIDIA Corporation to provide AI training to 5,000 students from 200 technical and higher education institutions via NVIDIA’s Deep Learning Institute (DLI) program. NVIDIA will also collaborate with the government to establish an AI Centre of Excellence focused on innovation and research.
Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy, who inaugurated the summit at HICC, emphasized Hyderabad's readiness for AI, unveiling the logo of AI City—a 200-acre research and development hub near the city. He declared, “This summit signifies our readiness for AI. We invite everyone to join us in making AI City a leading global hub.”
IT Minister D. Sridhar Babu highlighted Telangana’s leadership role in the AI revolution, with the AI City at the heart of the state’s strategy to become a trillion-dollar economy. He also noted plans to launch an AI school within the city.
Jayesh Ranjan announced that Telangana's partnership with the World Trade Centre (WTC) in Shamshabad will offer 200,000 square feet of premium office space for AI-driven companies while AI City is under development.
Further collaborations with Amazon Web Services and NxtWave will benefit over 100,000 students and professionals in the state, showcasing Telangana’s commitment to advancing AI capabilities and technological innovation.
On the development of open AI datasets in Telugu, Ranjan mentioned that work is in progress. An MoU with the Swecha NGO aims to create a Telugu literature archive to aid AI systems in understanding the language’s syntax, grammar, and vocabulary.
Additionally, Uber is set to create 1,000 jobs in tier-two and tier-three cities of Telangana. The company plans to utilize its traffic data to implement AI applications and support data annotation tasks in rural areas, with the infrastructure open for use by other companies while maintaining Uber's data privacy.