NE SCIENCE & TECH BUREAU
HYDERABAD, APR 10
In a defining moment for India’s artificial intelligence ambitions, Deakin University, Australia, and the Government of Telangana—through its flagship AI innovation hub AikamTM—have formalised a strategic partnership to accelerate applied AI, skilling, research and innovation.
🚀 Deakin University & Aikam Join Forces! 🤝
Deakin University, Australia, and Aikam have signed a landmark MoU to advance applied AI, skilling, research & innovation.
Key highlights:
✨ AI Skilling & Education: Global programs, executive training & workforce development
✨… pic.twitter.com/IdyeU2e285— IPRDepartment (@IPRTelangana) April 9, 2026
The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), signed at the Telangana State Secretariat, marks a major leap in global–local collaboration aimed at building a future-ready innovation ecosystem and strengthening India–Australia technological ties.
- Landmark MoU positions Telangana as a global proving ground for applied AI
- Deakin University joins hands with Aikam to power skilling, research and innovation
- New Centre of Excellence ‘Aikam–DHRITI’ to drive real-world AI solutions at scale
- Focus on workforce transformation, startups and data-driven governance
- India–Australia tech synergy deepens with future-ready collaboration
The agreement was exchanged between Professor Iain Martin, President and Vice-Chancellor, Deakin University, and Phani Nagarjuna, Founding CEO of AikamTM, in the presence of senior officials from both sides.
Reaffirming Telangana’s bold vision, Special Secretary, ITEC Department, Bhavesh Mishra said: “This partnership reflects Telangana’s continued commitment to building a future-ready innovation ecosystem anchored in responsible and inclusive AI. By collaborating with leading global institutions like Deakin University, we are strengthening our capacity to translate advanced research into real-world impact across different sectors of governance. This MoU reinforces our vision for positioning Telangana as a global hub for frontier technologies and talent development.”
At the heart of the collaboration lies a shared mission—to harness artificial intelligence for scalable, real-world impact across governance, economy and workforce transformation. The partnership will focus on three core pillars: AI skilling and education, research and applied innovation, and ecosystem and industry engagement.
A standout initiative under the MoU is the creation of the Aikam–Deakin Hub for Research in Intelligent Technology & Innovation (Aikam–DHRITI)—a Joint Centre of Excellence dedicated to advancing applied AI.
Phani Nagarjuna emphasised the transformative potential of the alliance: “At Aikam, our focus is on building a globally-competitive, outcome-driven AI innovation platform that delivers real impact at scale. This partnership with Deakin University is a significant step towards bringing together applied AI research, industry collaboration, and skilling to accelerate Telangana’s journey as a leader in applied AI. Through initiatives like Aikam–DHRITI, we are creating an open innovation ecosystem with leading global partners while building a bridge between innovation, policy, and deployment.”
Highlighting the global relevance of the collaboration, Professor Iain Martin noted: “This is an amazing collaboration between Deakin University and Government of Telangana. There is a huge convergence of emerging technologies happening currently across multiple domains like Data, cybersecurity, AI and Machine Learning and this offers a wonderful scope for this collaboration to explore and build public sector use-case applications, leveraging the all-pervasive ability of AI. Deakin University is looking forward to a mutually enriching partnership capitalizing on the technological leadership of Telangana towards furthering India-Australia relationship.”
Adding to this, Ravneet Pawha, Vice President (Global Engagement) and CEO (South Asia), Deakin University, said: “This partnership reflects the growing strategic alignment between India and Australia, and demonstrates how global academic strengths, when combined with progressive policy and innovation ecosystems, can deliver meaningful impact at scale.”
“It is a privilege for Deakin to partner with the forward-looking government of Telangana to drive high-impact, focused growth and capacity-building initiatives that leverage the complementarities of need and expertise.”
Echoing the sentiment, Commissioner, Electronic Service Delivery (ESD), ITEC Department, Ravi Kiran, observed that the collaboration comes at an opportune time and opens new avenues for leveraging AI in public service delivery.
By combining Deakin’s globally recognised expertise in applied AI with Telangana’s fast-evolving innovation ecosystem, the initiative aims to deliver scalable solutions, promote ethical AI adoption and position the state as a global hub for frontier technologies.
