BENGALURU: Marking a monumental milestone in the country’s technology landscape, Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar on Tuesday announced that Karnataka will establish India’s very first government-driven Artificial Intelligence (AI) University.

The Chief Minister made this landmark announcement while inaugurating the prestigious ‘Google I/O Connect India 2026’ summit at the Bengaluru International Exhibition Centre (BIEC).

The proposed institution is envisioned to play a central role in nurturing world-class AI talent, fostering high-end academic research, and building a robust collaborative network between academia, industry giants, and the government. Alongside the university, Shivakumar also announced the creation of a dedicated ‘AI Hub’ that will function as a state-of-the-art incubation center for startups, tech firms, and independent researchers looking to innovate in the machine learning ecosystem.

Reaffirming the state’s long-term technology vision, the Chief Minister emphasized the government’s ambition to transition Karnataka into a truly ‘AI-Native’ state. He emphasized that the integration of AI will not be limited to policies on paper but will be actively infused into governance and public utility structures to ensure transparent and efficient service delivery.

The targeted sectors under this digital framework include smarter classroom assistant tools for educators, early-stage disease diagnosis in public healthcare, real-time agro-advisory support for farmers, and global scalability toolkits for local small-scale businesses.

Lauding Google’s significant contributions to Bengaluru’s tech ecosystem over the past two decades, Shivakumar invited the tech giant to deepen its partnership in five core areas. These include co-developing localized AI solutions, boosting rural tech startups, conducting extensive student-level training programs, setting up a safe and responsible AI testing laboratory, and securing sustainable, long-term investments for green data centers across the state.

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