Tamil Nadu, Sarvam AI sign Rs 10,000 crore MoU to build India’s first Sovereign AI Park, to create 1,000 deep-tech jobs

The Government of Tamil Nadu on January 13 signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Sarvam AI to set up India’s first full-stack Sovereign AI Park in Chennai, marking one of the country’s largest state-led investments in artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure.

The project, which will see an initial investment of Rs 10,000 crore, is expected to create over 1,000 high-skilled deep-tech jobs and position Tamil Nadu as a national hub for sovereign, ethical and locally governed AI systems.

The MoU was exchanged in the presence of Chief Minister MK Stalin, Industries Minister TRB Rajaa, Industries Secretary Arun Roy, Guidance Tamil Nadu MD Darez Ahamed, IIT Madras Director Prof. V Kamakoti and Sarvam AI co-founder Pratyush Kumar.

The Sovereign AI Park will be developed as a purpose-built AI district integrating high-performance compute infrastructure, secure data frameworks, model research laboratories, AI innovation clusters and a dedicated Institute for AI in Governance. The park is designed to operate as a full-stack ecosystem where data, models and compute remain within the state’s trust boundary, enabling the deployment of sovereign AI systems aligned with public interest.

“This demonstrates our strategic commitment to not only adopt but also shape the future of artificial intelligence from a people-first, state-led perspective,” said TRB Rajaa, Minister for Industries, Government of Tamil Nadu. “With this unprecedented initiative, Tamil Nadu will lead the nation in the scaled deployment of AI across key sectors like education, agriculture, healthcare and citizen engagement.”

Arun Roy, Secretary to the Industries, Investment Promotion and Commerce Department, said the project would place Tamil Nadu among a small group of global destinations offering AI-grade infrastructure and deep-tech talent within a single integrated ecosystem.

“The Sovereign AI Park positions Tamil Nadu as one of the few places in the world where investors can access AI-ready infrastructure and deep talent pools in a single ecosystem. This is how the state is preparing itself for the next wave of global technology investment,” Roy said.

A key focus of the park will be the development of Tamil-first foundational AI models, inspired by the legacy of the ancient Sangam academies. Branded as a modern “Digital Sangam”, the initiative aims to link classical Tamil vocabulary with contemporary digital use-cases, embedding cultural and linguistic context into the next generation of AI systems.

“Artificial intelligence will define the next generation of jobs just as manufacturing and IT defined the last,” said Prof. V Kamakoti, Director of IIT Madras. “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.”

Sarvam AI, which was selected under the Indian government’s IndiaAI Mission to build the country’s first sovereign large language model, will anchor the technology stack of the AI park. The company focuses on building foundational AI models and platforms tailored for India’s languages, scale and diversity.

“This partnership is about building AI that is trained, deployed and governed in Tamil Nadu, for the world,” said Pratyush Kumar, co-founder of Sarvam AI. “By bringing together compute, researchers, startups, enterprises and government under one Sovereign AI Park, we are creating the conditions for AI to move from experimentation to real-world impact at national scale.”