Tamil Nadu signs MoU with Sarvam AI to establish Sovereign AI Park
The Sovereign AI Park will see an initial investment of Rs 10,000 crore and aims to build an inclusive ecosystem rooted in public interest
The government of Tamil Nadu has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Sarvam AI to establish Sovereign AI Park in Chennai.
The project, involving an initial investment of Rs 10,000 crore, will generate 1,000 high-skilled, deep-tech jobs and represents a foundational step in building a robust and inclusive AI ecosystem rooted in public interest, a statement said.
According to the statement, the Sovereign AI Park will be a first-of-its-kind purpose-built district in India that integrates AI compute infrastructure, secure data frameworks, model research labs and AI innovation clusters with a dedicated Institute for AI in Governance. It can operate as a full-stack system where data, models, and compute remain within the State’s trust boundary, ensuring a sovereign, ethical and inclusive ecosystem for deployment of AI systems.
“This demonstrates our strategic commitment to not only adopt but also shape the future of artificial intelligence from a people-first, state-led perspective, while enabling companies and startups that are pioneering the technology. With this unprecedented initiative, Tamil Nadu will lead the nation in the scaled deployment of AI. The deployment can be across key sectors like education, agriculture, healthcare and citizen engagement,” Tamil Nadu Industries Minister T R B Rajaa said.
The Sovereign AI park aims to develop foundational Tamil-first AI models that link classical vocabulary with modern use-cases, thereby embedding culture and context into every layer of digital intelligence. These efforts will ensure that the next generation of AI systems in Tamil Nadu are inclusive, accurate, and locally rooted.
“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 Tamil Nadu Government, is set to create the conditions for intelligence to move from experimentation to real-world impact at national scale,” Pratyush Kumar, Co-founder - Sarvam AI.
“Artificial intelligence will define the next generation of jobs just as manufacturing and IT defined the last. By anchoring sovereign AI infrastructure and frontier research in Tamil Nadu, students and researchers from the State will be enabled to become global creators of AI, not just consumers. This initiative aims to turn Tamil Nadu’s talent strength into long-term economic leadership,” said Prof. V. Kamakoti, Director, IIT Madras.