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The Tamil Nadu government on Tuesday, January 13, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Sarvam AI to establish India's first full-stack Sovereign Artificial Intelligence Park.
Backed by an investment of ₹10,000 crores, this initiative marks a major step in advancing the country's AI and digital sovereignty ambitions. The ambitious project is expected to generate more than 1,000 high-skilled deep-tech jobs and build a robust, public-interest-driven AI ecosystem in the state, according to a report in ANI.
The Sovereign AI Park will be a first-of-its-kind, purpose-built district that integrates high-performance AI compute infrastructure, secure data frameworks, advanced research labs, and innovation clusters. To enable secure, ethical, and inclusive AI deployment, it will house a dedicated Institute for AI in Governance, keeping data, models, and computing resources within the trusted boundary of the state.
The Sovereign AI Park, inspired by the historic Sangam academies, would act as a modern ‘Digital Sangam’, building Tamil-first foundational AI models that combine classical language and culture with modern digital use cases, ensuring that future AI systems in the state are inclusive, culturally anchored, and regionally relevant.
The MoU was inked in the presence of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin, Industries Minister TRB Rajaa, Industries Secretary Arun Roy IAS, IIT Madras Director Prof.V Kamakoti, and Sarvam AI Co-founder Pratyush Kumar.
Industries Minister Dr TRB Rajaa stated that this people-first initiative enables Tamil Nadu to shape the future of AI rather than just adopt it.
“This demonstrates our strategic commitment not only to adopt but also to shape the future of AI from a people-first, state-led perspective, while enabling companies and startups pioneering the technology. With this unprecedented initiative, Tamil Nadu will lead the nation in the scaled deployment of AI across key sectors like education, agriculture, healthcare, and citizen engagement,” TRB Rajaa added.
According to Industries Secretary Arun Roy, the project positions Tamil Nadu as a select group of global destinations featuring AI-grade infrastructure and a sovereign digital ecosystem.
“This is how Tamil Nadu is preparing to absorb and scale the next wave of global technology investment,” Roy said.
IIT Madras Director V Kamakoti stated that by establishing sovereign AI infrastructure and frontier research, Tamil Nadu students and researchers will be able to become global AI creators, turning the state's talent into long-term economic leadership.
Pratyush Kumar, co-founder of Sarvam AI, said, “This partnership is about building AI that is trained, deployed, and governed in Tamil Nadu — for the world. By bringing together compute, researchers, startups, enterprises, and government under one sovereign AI park, Sarvam AI, along with the state government, is set to create the conditions for intelligence to move from experimentation to real-world impact at a national scale."
Sarvam was chosen by the Indian government's IndiaAI Mission to create the country's first sovereign large language model, with access to extensive compute resources to build models optimised for reasoning, voice, and Indian languages.
Backed by an investment of ₹10,000 crores, this initiative marks a major step in advancing the country's AI and digital sovereignty ambitions. The ambitious project is expected to generate more than 1,000 high-skilled deep-tech jobs and build a robust, public-interest-driven AI ecosystem in the state, according to a report in ANI.
The Sovereign AI Park will be a first-of-its-kind, purpose-built district that integrates high-performance AI compute infrastructure, secure data frameworks, advanced research labs, and innovation clusters. To enable secure, ethical, and inclusive AI deployment, it will house a dedicated Institute for AI in Governance, keeping data, models, and computing resources within the trusted boundary of the state.
The Sovereign AI Park, inspired by the historic Sangam academies, would act as a modern ‘Digital Sangam’, building Tamil-first foundational AI models that combine classical language and culture with modern digital use cases, ensuring that future AI systems in the state are inclusive, culturally anchored, and regionally relevant.
The MoU was inked in the presence of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin, Industries Minister TRB Rajaa, Industries Secretary Arun Roy IAS, IIT Madras Director Prof.V Kamakoti, and Sarvam AI Co-founder Pratyush Kumar.
Industries Minister Dr TRB Rajaa stated that this people-first initiative enables Tamil Nadu to shape the future of AI rather than just adopt it.
“This demonstrates our strategic commitment not only to adopt but also to shape the future of AI from a people-first, state-led perspective, while enabling companies and startups pioneering the technology. With this unprecedented initiative, Tamil Nadu will lead the nation in the scaled deployment of AI across key sectors like education, agriculture, healthcare, and citizen engagement,” TRB Rajaa added.
According to Industries Secretary Arun Roy, the project positions Tamil Nadu as a select group of global destinations featuring AI-grade infrastructure and a sovereign digital ecosystem.
“This is how Tamil Nadu is preparing to absorb and scale the next wave of global technology investment,” Roy said.
IIT Madras Director V Kamakoti stated that by establishing sovereign AI infrastructure and frontier research, Tamil Nadu students and researchers will be able to become global AI creators, turning the state's talent into long-term economic leadership.
Pratyush Kumar, co-founder of Sarvam AI, said, “This partnership is about building AI that is trained, deployed, and governed in Tamil Nadu — for the world. By bringing together compute, researchers, startups, enterprises, and government under one sovereign AI park, Sarvam AI, along with the state government, is set to create the conditions for intelligence to move from experimentation to real-world impact at a national scale."
Sarvam was chosen by the Indian government's IndiaAI Mission to create the country's first sovereign large language model, with access to extensive compute resources to build models optimised for reasoning, voice, and Indian languages.
