Mohandas Pai criticises omission of Bengaluru from AI Centres of Excellence; Zoho’s Sridhar Vembu responds

Former Infosys board member Mohandas Pai has criticised the exclusion of Bengaluru—a city widely recognised as India’s technology capital—from the list of locations for the government's proposed AI Centres of Excellence.

In a move aimed at strengthening India’s capabilities in artificial intelligence, Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan recently announced plans to establish three AI Centres of Excellence (CoE), focusing on the key of healthcare, agriculture, and sustainable cities.

IIT Delhi and AIIMS will spearhead the healthcare CoE, IIT Ropar will head the agriculture CoE, and IIT Kanpur will drive the sustainable cities CoE.

This announcement has sparked off a debate. In a post on X, Pai argued that omitting Bengaluru overlooks its substantial contributions to the tech industry and its potential to drive AI innovation.

“Minister @dpradhanbjp nothing in Bengaluru, the technology capital of India? Why are you and @AshwiniVaishnaw ignoring the South in IT, ignoring Bengaluru? Are we not part of Bharat too?,” said Pai, in the post.

Bengaluru, also known as the Silicon Valley of India, is home to several leading global companies, startups, and premier educational institutions.

In response to Pai's concern, Sridhar Vembu, CEO of Zoho Corporation, defended the government’s decision and the choice of the committee that selected the locations of the AI CoEs. 

“I want to respond to this because I was the Co-chair of the apex committee that decided the 3 AI Centres of Excellence. The committee itself had plenty of us from the South (probably the majority). Most of us came from the private sector and the Government did not tell us who we should select,” responded Vembu. 

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Vembu stated that the committee, predominantly comprising members from South India and the private sector, selected candidates independently based on a "thorough evaluation" of their actual projects without government directives.

“The responsibility for this decision on the AI Centres of Excellence should be with us in the committee and personally with me as Co-chair and I beg people to not inject North-South politics in this,” he said.

He elaborated, “IISc Bengaluru, IIT Chennai, NIT Calicut, IIT Hyderabad, and IIT Mumbai all presented very strong proposals, but the ones we selected stood out in the end. The committee was unanimous in this decision. We stand by our judgement.”