'Tech innovation top on agenda for Andhra Pradesh govt': Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu plans to leverage technologies such as AI and blockchain to create knowledge economy in the state.
At the Vizag Fintech Festival held in Visakhapatnam, which began on October 22, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu laid out the roadmap to emulate or even surpass his past achievements in the creation of technology industry and industrialisation.
Andhra Pradesh and Telangana were the two states created from the undivided Andhra Pradesh in 2014 and the chief minister has embarked on the plan to realise the vision of creating an innovation valley in the state, similar to the Silicon Valley in the US.
The first step towards this goal has been the establishment of the Silicon Corridor in the Tirupati-Nellore-Chennai belt. It is envisioned to be a manufacturing hub for hardware electronics and will include the setting up of mobile phone manufacturing units.
Xiaomi, the global Chinese smartphone manufacturer, has already set up its manufacturing unit at Sri City in Andhra Pradesh. “Earlier, there was not even one phone manufacturer in Andhra Pradesh but, today, we constitute around 25-30 percent of the total output for the country,” Naidu said.
Acknowledging the fact that an ecosystem cannot be created overnight, the CM, however, gave the example of HITEC City in Hyderabad, which was initiated during his tenure as the head of the undivided state way back in 1995.
“Earlier, I promoted information technology and now we are going to the next level, which is creating a knowledge economy,” Naidu said, adding that while the state was still a new entity a reasonable scale of achievement is possible.
Andhra Pradesh has incorporated various new technologies to enhance its citizen services. For example, it has implemented the blockchain technology in the State’s public distribution system to ensure transparency in the entire process. The State government is also integrating information technology across all its departments to gather data, and this will be shared with the startups to build new business models. Naidu observed that incorporating such new tech will not only increase efficiency but also lead to wealth creation.
Andhra Pradesh has recorded a growth of 10.5 percent in the last four years but the target is to raise it to 15 percent, the chief minister said. However, he noted that it was equally important to raises the happiness quotient in the State as well.
