IBM & Gujarat Govt. Partner for AI Cluster at GIFT City

New Delhi, Jun 29 (PTI) IBM and the Gujarat government on Saturday inked a pact to establish and promote an AI cluster leveraging IBM's 'watsonx' to drive innovation and collaboration among financial institutions in Gujarat International Finance Tec (GIFT) City.

Under this partnership, financial institutions will gain access to AI Sandbox, assistance in providing proof of concept, AI literacy programmes and digital assistant solutions, according to a release.

"IBM and the Department of Science and Technology, Government of Gujarat today entered a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to establish and promote an AI Cluster leveraging IBM's watsonx to foster innovation and collaboration among financial institutions in Gujarat International Finance Tec (GIFT) City," the release said.

IBM's 'watsonx' is an AI and data platform built for business.

Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel said: "This MoU with IBM will help Gujarat to lead the country in efforts to adopt AI and drive digital transformation."

According to Sandip Patel, Managing Director of IBM India and South Asia, the use of AI for business is a strategic priority for enterprises today to gain competitive advantage through better productivity, innovation and customer experience.

"This collaboration is a significant step in our continued association with the Government of Gujarat to accelerate the digital transformation of the state. By establishing this AI cluster, our aim is to make the latest AI solutions easily accessible to the vibrant and growing number of financial institutions in GIFT city," he added.

As part of this MoU, IBM will provide software technologies and platforms over a cloud environment enabling financial institutions to customise and fine-tune large language AI models in a sandbox environment.

IBM will also aim to build a digital assistant-based solution that facilitates the onboarding and integration of these customised large language models for financial institutions.

In line with the company's commitment to skill 30 million people by 2030 and train 2 million learners in AI by the end of 2026, IBM will develop an AI curriculum for schools and universities across Gujarat.