IBM expands India play with UP AI centre, Andhra’s AI stack

Technology giant IBM has stepped up its India strategy with new state-level AI partnerships in Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh, alongside broader engagements in skilling, quantum and enterprise cloud. On Sunday evening, IBM inaugurated an AI GovTech Innovation Centre in Lucknow with the Government of Uttar Pradesh. The facility, opened in the presence of Yogi Adityanath and IBM chairman and chief executive Arvind Krishna, will co-develop AI solutions to improve citizen services, regulatory processes, and departmental efficiency.

IBM signed two memorandums of understanding with the state — one with the Department of IT & Electronics to identify high-impact AI use cases and build digital readiness across departments, and another with the Directorate of School Education to introduce AI literacy programmes for students from Classes 6 to 12 and teachers.

Separately, on Friday, the Government of Andhra Pradesh announced plans to collaborate with IBM, BharatGen and NxtGen to build a “Swadeshi AI stack” — a sovereign AI framework designed to power citizen-centric services in Telugu and other regional languages.
The proposed stack will unify AI models, government datasets, software platforms and deployment tools within a single architecture that can operate on sovereign cloud platforms or on-premises data centres. The aim is to strengthen governance and service delivery while embedding AI capabilities tailored to India’s linguistic and cultural context.

IBM will provide expertise in data and AI, hybrid cloud, automation, governance and security, advocating a sovereignty-by-design approach that allows full control over data and compliance. BharatGen will contribute multilingual foundation models with native support for Telugu and other Indian languages, while NxtGen will offer India-hosted cloud and GPU infrastructure optimised for AI workloads and data localisation requirements.

The latest announcements add to IBM’s expanding India engagements. In 2025, it partnered with the All India Council for Technical Education to set up a National AI Lab, and with the Airawat Research Foundation at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur for AI-led air quality monitoring.
IBM has also signed a letter of intent with the Government of Maharashtra on quantum collaboration and partnered with Bharti Airtel to strengthen enterprise cloud and AI adoption.