Nasscom launches centre of excellence for IoT and AI in Visakhapatnam

IT industry’s apex body Nasscom in a joint partnership with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and government of Andhra Pradesh, on Tuesday launched a centre of excellence (CoE) focussed on internet of things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI) at Andhra University Campus, Visakhapatnam, aimed at promoting innovation in emerging technologies like IoT, AI, and robotics.
 
“The new centre advances Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Digital India vision by providing open labs and infrastructure to create and validate solutions from design to prototype to democratize innovation. It also promotes entrepreneurship by providing an incubation facility for peer-to-peer learning and the benefit of an industrial environment,” Nasscom said in a statement.

Startups in the state are also expected to benefit through the launch of the new centre with newer opportunities in areas of their development, mentorship, funding, and the adoption of their solutions in the industry. The CoE is currently working with enterprises interested in collaborating with startups for newer innovative solutions.
 
The CoE of IoT and AI aims to solve real-world challenges and creating an impact. It is designed to be a catalyst that will help the industry embrace technology and become globally competitive. The centre will focus on harnessing the power of AI and IoT to bring new opportunities for industry, startups, and academia.
 
“The CoEs have become almost a melting point that beautifully connects the different ecosystems to understand the big problems that technology can solve, brainstorms the best use technology to address these challenges or problems, and jointly co-create solutions,” said Debjani Ghosh, president, Nasscom.

She cites an example where during the pandemic, delivery of remote healthcare to the last mile was needed with solutions that would work with limited resources like low-bandwidth and no power connectivity. “Very quickly DBT, MeitY, Nasscom, got together to bring together healthcare professions to bring together startups, to bring together tech industries and figure out ways that we could address this critical issue of ensuring that every Indian could have access to healthcare no matter where they were,” Ghosh added.