CHENNAI: The state government is planning to come up with a deep tech fund and a mechanism for the start-ups to help carry out government work, both in Tamil Nadu and across India, said Minister for Information Technology and Digital Services Palanivel Thiaga Rajan.
Speaking during the first anniversary of Tamil Nadu Technology Hub (iTNT Hub), Thiaga Rajan said the state will be rolling out Deep Tech and Artificial Intelligence policies in tune with with the union government’s Deep Tech policy.
“We will be focussing on three or four areas, including technology product design, which will facilitate new product development with the confluence of product designers and manufacturers; the second is to organise the iTNT conclave regularly, as intellectual property is the bedrock of innovation and our status is already the leader in patent filing, research and development and engineering,” he said.
“We would have a deep tech fund and my endeavour to establish one follows my recent visit to the US Bay area. It will provide a mechanism for deep tech startups, enabling them to do government work in Tamil Nadu and across India,” he added.
Stating that the state is industrialised and has a great talent pool, the minister said he wants to use the innovation approach as a way to accelerating the economy and achieving Chief Minister MK Stalin’s vision of a trillion dollar economy by 2030. Highlighting the advent of AI and Deep Tech as a inflection point in the technology space, he said there is no question that AI changes the nature of work in many ways, be it disruptive, creating new kind of opportunities and enterprises.
During the event, iTNT hub signed MoUs with the Tamil Nadu Smart and Advance Manufacturing Centre, in association with Siemens; Tamil Nadu Centers of Excellence for Advanced Manufacturing, in association with Dassault Systmes; Tamil Nadu Infrastructure Fund Management Corporation; Amazon Web Services India; Microsoft India; and D Labs Incubator Association, India School of Business, T-Hub, and T-Works, Hyderabad.
Two technology transfers have been facilitated by iTNT Hub through its “Jigsaw” platform that fosters industry-academia collaboration. iTNT has on-boarded over 4,100 academic researchers from diverse Emerging and Deep Tech fields to this platform.