India's Telangana State signs Eight Artificial Intelligence related MoUs

Telangana, an Indian State, has now officially declared the year 2020 as the year of Artificial Intelligence.

The state signed eight Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) with various other companies and educational institutes at the time of meeting held with top industries and academia.

Intel, the Public Health Foundation of India and Indian Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad, has jointly signed the agreement with the Telangana government for setting up a research center in applied AI in smart mobility and healthcare.

Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur, has signed an MoU to set up a center of excellence in the AI and research and development park.

The state government also signed MoU with the IIT-Hyderabad, Wadhwani Ii, Innovation Norway, and Hexagon.

Executive Opinion

Business Standard reported a statement from IT and Industries Minister, Telangana, KT Rama Rao, who said, "In line with our vision and our approach, AI will be our focus for the coming year and beyond. While we are calling 2020 as the ‘Year of AI,’ this event would set in motion a set of initiatives, which would potentially make the next decade as Telangana’s decade of AI. The government of Telangana doesn’t believe in working in silos. While we have identified different emerging technologies, we have also decided that we cannot do it by ourselves and have chosen to combine forces with industries and institutions. We believe this approach; we will be able to cross the 25 billion mark and increase the number of jobs."

In the same report, Principal Secretary, IT and Industries, Government of Telangana, Jayesh Ranjan, said, "As part of the ‘Year of AI’ there would be year-long programs and activities in the emerging technology, and some of them are long-term in nature."

India's New Age Technologies Adoption and Startup Growth

In India, the Telangana government has been one of the few states which have shown signs of adopting the new age technologies in their policies.

Prior to signing these MoU’s, Rao has previously revealed that the government is also planning to build IMAGE (Innovation in animation, Multimedia, Gaming, and Entertainment) tower.

The IMAGE project will help global giants to access gaming talent, technology, and resource in one place. The facility will spread in more than 16 lakh square feet and expected to complete by early 2021.

Moreover, for prompting the startup ecosystem in the state, The Government of Telangana, in September 2019, had partnered with India’s largest incubator, T-Hub, for a three-month funding acceleration program called as T-Angel.

The full video of the announcement is available here.