In AI stimulus, govt allots ₹500 crore for Centre of Excellence in education

The central government will set up a centre for excellence (CoE) in Artificial Intelligence (AI) for education with an outlay of ₹500 crore, Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced in her budget speech on Saturday, outlining a major push for future technologies.

- Aditi Agrawal

NEW DELHI:

Sitharaman also announced a ₹20,000 crore allocation to encourage private sector-driven research, development and innovation, a portion of which may be used to set up a "Deep Tech Fund of Funds" to encourage startups.

The CoE for AI in education is the fourth such centre to be announced. In 2023, Sitharaman announced a CoE in AI for agriculture, health, and sustainable cities. In a media interaction after the budget speech, IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw also said the allocation for the new CoE was a part of the allocation for the IndiaAI Mission, the IT Ministry's initiative to boost indigenous AI development that was cleared with an outlay of ₹10,371.92 crore in March 2024 to be spent over five years.

On Saturday, the IndiaAI Mission was allocated ₹2,000 crore for FY26, up from the revised estimate of ₹173 crore for FY25.

Through this ₹2,000 crore, the government wants to set up 20 AI curation units in central ministries in FY26 and 80 IndiaAI labs across India, according to the government's output document.