Odisha Explores Strategic Partnership with Sarvam to Build Sovereign, Population-Scale AI Ecosystem

Bhubaneswar: In a significant step towards positioning Odisha as a national leader in responsible and citizen-centric artificial intelligence, the State Government today held a high-level strategic meeting with the leadership of Sarvam, an Indian artificial intelligence company. The discussions form part of Odisha’s broader roadmap to build a secure, inclusive, and sovereign AI ecosystem aligned with Vision 2036 and Vision 2047.

The meeting was attended by the Chief Minister of Odisha, the Minister for Electronics & IT, the Chief Secretary, the Principal Secretary (Electronics & IT), the Principal Secretary, Finance, senior State officials, and the leadership team of Sarvam. Deliberations focused on establishing artificial intelligence as a long-term public capability rather than a short-term technology adoption, with emphasis on sovereign infrastructure, population-scale applications, and durable institutional capacity within the State.

The Government of Odisha outlined its approach to developing shared, state-governed AI infrastructure, including secure compute capacity and trusted data platforms. This model aims to ensure that public data, AI models, and intelligence systems remain within Odisha’s trust boundary, while enabling multiple departments to leverage a common infrastructure. Such an approach is expected to enhance scale, security, and sustainability, while avoiding fragmented and duplicative investments.

A key area of discussion was the deployment of population-scale, voice-enabled AI applications across critical sectors such as education, agriculture, healthcare, e-governance, and public safety. These applications are intended to strengthen last-mile delivery of government schemes by allowing citizens—especially those in rural, tribal, and low-literacy contexts—to access information on entitlements, benefits, and grievance redressal through simple, conversational interfaces.

To ensure rapid and effective rollout, both sides discussed a parallel one-year execution framework under which departments would prepare datasets, identify priority use cases, and co-develop applications alongside the commissioning of core AI infrastructure. This approach is designed to ensure that citizen-facing services are ready for deployment without delays once the infrastructure is operational.

The discussions also underscored the importance of building durable institutional capacity within the State. This includes training government officials, supporting applied research, and nurturing local technical talent to ensure that AI systems can be governed, sustained, and evolved by Odisha over the long term.

The State Government indicated that it plans to formalise the partnership through the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) during the Black Swan Summit scheduled for February 5 and 6, 2026.

Sarvam, an Indian artificial intelligence company focused on foundational AI models and large-scale governance use cases, particularly in speech and language technologies, was identified as a potential indigenous partner aligned with Odisha’s objective of building sovereign AI capabilities suited to Indian contexts.

Speaking after the meeting, the Chief Minister said, “Odisha must follow a model where we do not merely adopt technology, but become a harbinger of technology for others to follow. Artificial intelligence gives us an opportunity to set new benchmarks in governance and public service delivery.”

The Chief Secretary noted that Odisha has the opportunity to emerge as a technology leader through the true democratisation of AI, ensuring that its benefits reach citizens across sectors and geographies. The Hon’ble Minister for Electronics & IT emphasised the transformative potential of AI in high-impact domains such as agriculture and healthcare, particularly through population-scale deployment that can improve livelihoods and reduce the burden on frontline workers.

The Principal Secretary, Finance, highlighted that artificial intelligence, if deployed thoughtfully, can democratise access to advanced capabilities across departments, districts, and citizens. The Principal Secretary, Electronics & IT, reiterated the State’s commitment to secure, shared, and scalable AI infrastructure that avoids long-term dependency and fragmented deployments.

On behalf of Sarvam, Co-founder Pratyush Kumar said that Odisha’s focus on sovereign AI and population-scale public impact reflects a clear understanding of how artificial intelligence can strengthen governance, adding that the company looks forward to translating this vision into durable public systems.

Reaffirming its vision, the Government of Odisha stated that its AI roadmap will remain inclusive, outcome-driven, and focused on last-mile service delivery, transparency, and long-term state capacity, positioning Odisha as a national benchmark for responsible and citizen-centric use of artificial intelligence.