HUBBALLI: IT, Electronics, BT, and Science & Technology Minister Dr CN Ashwath Narayan on Monday announced that Hubballi would be getting a Centre for Excellence on Artificial Intelligence, and the government was in search of an anchor institution like NASSCOM or private industries to work with local players in setting up the said facility.
Narayan said the Hubballi-Dharwad-Belagavi cluster, formed under the Karnataka Digial Economy Mission, under the Beyond Bengaluru programme, is next to Bengaluru as far as launching startups.
Accordingly, eight new startups have come up in the region in the last one year under the said programme. Apart from existing incubation centres in the region, more such facilities are expected to come up at the IIT, IIIT and VTU, so prospects of new startups here are high, said the minister, adding that the new firms that have come up have already created 4,000 direct and indirect jobs.
Earlier, speaking at the Techceleration-2022 convention, the minister said a Global Emerging Technology Centre would be set up at the cost of Rs 150 crore in Belagavi. He assured that Rs 25 crore has been provided to the Hubballi Cluster Seed Fund to accelerate startups, which have reached the stage of creating products and services at the incubation centres.