Minister Priyank Kharge, Anthropic India discuss AI collaboration for Karnataka

Bengaluru, Jul 11 (PTI) Karnataka IT Minister Priyank Kharge on Saturday met Irina Ghose, Managing Director of Anthropic India, to discuss the state's AI vision and opportunities for strategic collaboration, officials said. The discussions focused on building advanced, future-ready AI skillsets and forging partnerships for skilling and co-creation, they said. Anthropic is an AI safety and research company, officials noted. According to a statement from the minister's office, the two sides also deliberated on establishing Centres of Excellence and incubators to strengthen AI research, innovation and entrepreneurship in the state. A key focus of the interaction was leveraging existing datasets for public good and strengthening citizen services through AI, it said. Officials said the discussions also explored Karnataka's transition from e-governance to i-governance (intelligence-driven governance) by harnessing AI to build more responsive, efficient and citizen-centric systems. According to him, Karnataka's AI vision is focused on building advanced capabilities, strengthening the state's innovation ecosystem and harnessing technology to improve governance and citizen services. "Our engagement with Anthropic is an opportunity to explore meaningful collaboration across skilling, research, startups and AI-led governance, while building sustainable and scalable models that can create long-term public value," he said. The meeting explored opportunities to design sustainable and scalable AI programmes for the government and citizens, while strengthening collaboration between startups and Global Capability Centres through mentorship, co-creation and greater engagement with Karnataka's existing deep-tech startup ecosystem, the minister's office added. PTI AMP SSK