Hyderabad, Jan 3 (KNN) Telangana state government has declared 2020 as the year of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and signed eight Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) with various companies and educational institutes to pave way for upcoming technological advancement in the state.

The MoUs which  were signed on Thursday in the presence of Rama Rao and other stakeholders of the AI ecosystem, including academicians, industry leaders, local and national startups, a representative from the Norwegian Embassy.

"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,' our government will set in motion a set of initiatives, which will potentially make the next decade as Telangana's decade of AI. Telangana is ready to capture the global AI opportunity," the IT Minister said.

Speaking on the occasion, Nivruti Rai, Country Head, Intel India and vice-president of Data Centre Group, Intel Corp, said AI is going to create 13 trillion dollar to the world economy.

US-based tech major NVIDIA will partner with the state government to setup a High-Performance AI Computing (HPAIC) Centre in Telangana. They will also assist in startup incubation, host AI training sessions to support women & minority groups and organise hackathons among many other things.

IIT-Kharagpur has also signed MoU to set up a centre of excellence in AI and research and Development Park.

''As part of the 'Year of AI', there would be year-long programmes and activities in the emerging technology and some of them are long-term in nature.'' said Jayesh Ranjan, Principal Secretary, IT and Industries.  (KNN/ KS)

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