[Create Large Pool of AI/ML Engineers in Telangana]

Artificial Intelligence, Generative AI has/will become ubiquitous across many industries ranging from manufacturing to software development. Every company is now coming to terms on importance of embedding generative AI to sector specific value chains. There isn’t a single analyst call presentations that is conducted today without the mention of how a company is adopting generative AI in forecasting, optimization of process paths and even hiring.

The AI market in India will grow to $17B by 2027 with a CAGR of 25-35% according to NASSCOM. Notably there is a 67% growth year on year in demand for AI engineers. Hyderabad has 100000 AI/ML engineers second to Bengaluru at 150000. But this won’t be enough and we will need to grow this pool from 2X-3X in the next 3-5 years. 

Government should play a strong enabler to prop up this growth and could explore the following:
1. Build a strong consortium of companies that is representative of all sectors operating in Hyderabad/Telangana
2. The consortium should help the government and education department design the AI/ML courses to be taught in state universities and engineering colleges. 
3. Every college/university should pick top 50 students from college at the end of the second year and make them part of “ELITE” group. Students should be chosen strictly based on merit and academic excellence demonstrated in 2 years of engineering coursework. 
4. With about 400 colleges in our state, we will be creating a 20k pool of students in “ELITE” group and government should administer a separate coursework designed by academia/industry and leverage online sessions of IIT/Coursera to train and upskill candidates further. Government could bear the expense for the above
5. At the end of 3rd year, consortium of companies could absorb them in the companies for internship based on the demand. Even lack of it, the pool could also be a great source for freelance work and aid proliferation of startups in the state. 
6. Creation of this “ELITE” could also elevate the academic performance of many other students once they start noticing how being part of “ELITE” could pave the path for great opportunities ahead. 
7. This “ELITE” group could also be tagged to T-HUB where they get free access to generative Ai tools to build great companies for the future.