Puducherry Gets ₹20 Crore AI Centre of Excellence to Boost Innovation
Puducherry is set to establish an Artificial Intelligence Centre of Excellence (AI CoE) under the India AI Mission, a national initiative to bolster AI capabilities. The project aims to strengthen the Union Territory's AI ecosystem, promote innovation, and position Puducherry as a technology hub.
The Directorate of Information Technology (DIT) has issued an Expression of Interest (EoI) inviting corporate, academic, and research organisations to partner in setting up the centre. The proposed AI CoE will cost ₹20 crore, with funding split as 40 per cent from the Government of India, 40 per cent from the Puducherry administration, and the remaining 20 per cent from the industry or academic partner.
According to an official, the centre is likely to be located at Puducherry Technological University or the MSME Centre, spanning about 12,000 square feet. It will be equipped with GPU servers, high-end desktops, laptops, AI tools, and dedicated network connectivity. The facility will serve as a platform for applied research, AI skilling, startup incubation, and implementation of AI-based solutions in government departments.
The centre's objectives include building AI computing infrastructure, developing innovative AI products, consolidating datasets for AI applications, and promoting ethical AI practices. It will focus on upskilling, reskilling, and advanced skilling while encouraging entrepreneurship in AI and emerging technologies.
A wide range of use cases has been identified across departments. In health, the centre will work on diagnosis support, epidemic prediction, and hospital resource planning. In agriculture, it will focus on crop pattern analysis, crop survey, pest detection, soil monitoring, and satellite or drone image analysis. Other areas include tourism crowd management, fisheries-related prediction tools, personalised skilling in education, traffic optimisation in urban development, and grievance or fraud detection in smart governance.
Official sources said the initiative is intended to go beyond research and function as a practical tool for public service delivery and data-driven decision-making. The centre has set annual targets including incubation of 24 startups, development of 30 prototypes or products, creation of 300 jobs, conduct of eight hackathons, and production of 20 research publications.
