One IIT for every state university, half the fees for IIT stints: Naidu's promises at the PanIIT summit

Andhra Pradesh's universities will each be paired with an IIT, Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu said on Saturday, as he listed what the state had agreed with the alumni of the 23 IITs at the PanIIT Andhra Pradesh Summit in Vijayawada.

"Here I want to make Amaravati and also Andhra Pradesh a global knowledge hub," he said. "If five lakh brilliant IIT brains are with me, then I can imagine what I can do."

"One university, one IIT. They will mentor continuously to get that standards."

What the IITs have agreed to, he said

• An IIT research park in Amaravati.
• One university, one IIT: each state university will be mentored by an IIT on a continuing basis.
• Centres of excellence set up by IITs in each university, and incubators in all state universities.
• IIT syllabus in state universities, with demand-driven courses and continuous changes to the curriculum. "All my universities are in tune with them," he said.
• Teacher training: "All our lecturers, to reach IIT standards, IIT faculty will train them. That also we requested them, they agreed for that."
• Student exchanges of one or two years, so that "every person will have IIT experience". If necessary, he said, "the government of Andhra Pradesh is prepared to reimburse 50% fees, so that they will have that confidence."

From Class 6, a start-up mindset

Naidu said he wanted entrepreneurial skills taught from Class 6, and repeated his slogan of "one family, one entrepreneur", to be supported by a Ratan Tata Innovation Hub at the state headquarters with five spoke centres. Every constituency would get an MSME park on top of the industrial parks, he said. His aim: every student should come out with a job, go on to an institution of excellence, or leave college "with a start-up idea".

'Speed of doing business'

For investors, Naidu made two promises. To venture capital funds: "You bring money, you bring mentors, I will also give you matching." And to industry, which had asked him to make doing business easier: "I told them, not only ease of doing business, we are going one step ahead of you. That is speed of doing business."

Financial incentives will be placed in advance in an escrow account and paid into companies' accounts on a fixed day, he said. "No need to come to any government office." He said he would bring in agentic AI to streamline government systems "immediately".

He also announced a Global Leadership Council with the Confederation of Indian Industry, to train business, political and non-profit leaders from Amaravati, alongside the PanIIT Amaravati Council agreed at the summit.

A sovereign AI stack

The state already pulls its data into a single data lake, Naidu said, along with real-time readings on temperature, soil moisture, rain, humidity, air quality and reservoir levels, and is building "a sovereign AI stack" to analyse it. He asked IIT alumni to join as knowledge or commercial partners. He gave tax as an example of what data can do: with only 50 to 60% of touch points integrated, he said, GST collections had grown 18% over the last six months. "If I integrate 80% data, it will go beyond 20%."

"Every year we are going to meet and review what we have done," he told the alumni.

The summit also set up the PanIIT Amaravati Council and a venture fund, and launched five QShiva quantum systems.