Vijayawada: Amaravati, the greenfield capital city of Andhra Pradesh, is being planned as an ‘Artificial Intelligence City’ to cater to future needs of the growing AI market, said IT and HRD minister Nara Lokesh at a round-table meeting on the topic — ‘Shaping the Future for NextGen AI – Innovation Hub, Data Factory, and AI University’ — during the third day of the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday.
Explaining the position of the state in AI, Lokesh said an MoU is being finalised with NVIDIA for setting up of an AI university in Visakhapatnam. “AP currently has over 2,000 recognised registered startup companies. We have initiated skill development programs in AI & ML, which are in high demand internationally. AI will be introduced in school curricula from grades 7 to 9 to enhance students’ skills. We are using AI in agriculture, pension distribution, and in governance,” he said.
The participants included NVIDIA’s global head of AI nations Shilpa Kolhatkar (virtually), Harvard University’s growth lab director Ricardo Hausmann, University of Maryland’s Industrial AI professor and director Jay Lee, and Oxford University’s cybersecurity professor Sadie Creese, with NDTV Profit executive editor Neeraj Shah being the moderator.
“By 2030, the demand for global data centres could average between 19% and 22%, reaching 219 gigawatts. North America leads the data centre market with a 40% share (1,000 data centres). There is a shortage of 1 million AI professionals,” Lokesh said, adding that Silicon Valley in Bengaluru is the world’s top innovation hub.
Speaking at another conference on ‘Building the Ecosystem for Intelligent Industries’, Lokesh said the central govt, in partnership with Nasscom, has established a centre of excellence for IoT and AI development in Visakhapatnam. “This has achieved significant progress in deep tech innovations. Last year, we secured Rs 131 crore in funding for eight new AI and IoT startups in the state. In line with the ‘Swarnandhra 2047′ vision goals, we are setting up three knowledge cities in Amaravati, Visakhapatnam, and Tirupati, which will include an AI University, a national centre for AI, and five world-class multidisciplinary education and research universities,” he said.
Lokesh also met Ravi Lambha from Temasek Holdings and suggested investing in industrial parks, data centres, renewable energy, and power transmission through their subsidiaries CapitaLand, Sematech Telemedia, and Sembcorp. Lokesh also met Wipro executive chairman Rishad Premji. He invited Wipro to start operations in the rapidly developing IT sector in Andhra Pradesh, including Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada, and Tirupati, in line with the company’s growth strategy and regional expansion plans.
