I congratulate the SKOCH team for achieving this magic number—100. One hundred is a number everyone likes. As students, we always chased those elusive 100 marks, and later in life we dream of living to 100 years. It truly is a magical number, and I congratulate the entire team for reaching this important milestone.

We have been closely associated with SKOCH, especially in the area of e-governance. When we implemented projects and received the SKOCH Awards, it provided a platform to interact with different states—to understand their learnings, experiences, and best practices. That is how this platform enabled sharing of governance programs and projects.

Coming to today’s topic, I was asked to speak about the journey from Digital Telangana to AI Telangana.

Under Digital Telangana, over the past decade, we have transformed service delivery. I remember as a child my father taking half a day’s leave to pay electricity or water bills. Even during my college days, I had to bunk classes to help pay bills. Today, no one needs to visit government offices for such services.

In Telangana, services such as utility bills, birth certificates, income certificates, and even driving licenses can be applied for and renewed online. Currently, we deliver nearly 200 services across 27 government departments. These are delivered through multiple channels—online portals, MeeSeva centres for rural citizens, and the T-App Folio mobile app for urban users.

We are also laying T-Fiber to provide broadband connectivity to every corner of Telangana, especially villages. Our goal is to connect one crore households, covering a population of 3.5 crore, with speeds of up to 10 Mbps. Along with this, we have a state data centre. This foundational digital layer, built over nearly two decades, is now enabling us to leapfrog into AI.

The number 100 resonates again. Two years ago, a McKinsey Global Partner remarked that this is not just India’s decade—it is India’s century. To make it so, three ingredients are essential: talent, manufacturing, and digitalization. Today, I will focus on digitalization.

From a government perspective, three enablers are critical: policy enablement, data, and collaboration for innovation.

First, policy enablement. For emerging technologies, especially AI, we developed comprehensive policy frameworks that outline foundational pillars and government interventions. These frameworks serve as guiding documents and the bedrock for advancing emerging technologies in Telangana.

However, policy alone is not enough. Implementation matters. That is why we established Centres of Excellence. For AI, we set up the Telangana AI Mission, working with partners across startups, enterprises, foundations, and civil society. We declared 2020 as the Year of AI and identified six core pillars, including data exchange, skilling, and governance.

Second, data. We launched an Open Data Portal, making over 45,000 datasets across 38 sectors publicly available. Startups actively use this data. Building on this, we created an Agriculture Data Exchange Platform, hosting critical datasets including a database of 60 lakh farmers. Today, banks like HDFC are using this platform to offer loans to farmers.

We are now extending this model to a Telangana Data Exchange Platform across sectors such as healthcare, transportation, and education. Data is the key fuel for AI, and we are ensuring its availability and usability.

Third, innovation through collaboration. Each project tells a story of impact.

In transport, we deployed Advanced Driver Assistance Systems on public buses to reduce road accidents. Road fatalities in India are among the highest globally, with one death every three minutes—often among people aged 18–35. After piloting ADAS on 200 buses, accidents reduced by nearly 40% within six months.

In agriculture, AI-based solutions for quality assessment, advisories, and climate inputs increased farmer incomes by nearly 20%. The program started with 7,000 farmers and has now expanded to 50,000, supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

In forestry, AI tools are monitoring vast forest areas, identifying animal species, tracking movement, detecting poaching, fires, and illegal activity. Edge AI cameras are being deployed to provide real-time alerts.

We are also launching a mental wellness initiative shortly. Drug abuse among school children is a growing concern. Parents hesitate to speak openly due to social stigma. In collaboration with startups, we developed a tool that allows parents to discreetly assess risk. Pilot programs helped identify nearly 500 children early, potentially saving lives. This solution will be rolled out across schools in Hyderabad.

To assess progress and future needs, we released an AI Implementation Roadmap during the Global AI Summit in September. It focuses on AI-equipped governance, scaling successful pilots, expanding datasets, building models, and setting up annotation labs in tier-2 and tier-3 cities.

We are working with startups to train rural women as data annotators, promoting digital literacy and AI awareness. So far, over 30,000 students have been trained, and the scope is expanding to citizens and professionals.

We are strengthening AI infrastructure, starting with 4,000 GPUs in Phase One and expanding further. The government has also launched an AI City, bringing the entire ecosystem together, including compute, R&D centres, and industry collaboration.

We are developing Telugu large language models to enable voice-based services for rural citizens. A rural woman should be able to request government services using speech in Telugu. The system will authenticate identity, process the request, and deliver services seamlessly.

We are also setting up Centres of Excellence in AI, starting with healthcare and gaming, with more to follow.

In conclusion, this is a defining moment for India. With vision, leadership, and coordinated action, AI can truly transform governance and inclusion. As we move toward India at 100, we aspire to make India the best place to live and work.

Thank you.

Participants at the New Dimensions in Inclusive Growth