Karnataka is in talks with Anthropic to build a long-term partnership focused on deploying AI across governance, higher education, healthcare, scientific research and the state’s startup ecosystem, Chief Minister D K Shivakumar said after meeting the company’s leadership on August 6.
The discussions covered the use of AI in public services, cybersecurity, data privacy, data sovereignty and skill development, with the government proposing that public-sector data be hosted within Karnataka.
“Artificial Intelligence presents one of the greatest opportunities to transform governance, empower citizens and accelerate economic growth. Karnataka is committed to leading this transformation with a clear vision that places people, trust and innovation at its core," Shivakumar said in a LinkedIn post.
He said he met Michael Sellitto, Anthropic’s Head of International Policy, and the company's leadership team to discuss a long-term partnership with the Karnataka government.
According to Shivakumar, the state’s approach is “Government First”, with AI being used to improve public services through secure and transparent systems.
“We discussed strengthening AI-driven governance while ensuring responsible deployment, robust cybersecurity, data privacy and data sovereignty, with government data securely hosted within Karnataka,” he said.
The talks also included plans for a proposed AI University, large-scale AI skilling under the NIPUNA programme, Claude certification programmes, collaboration with the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), and support for more than 20,000 startups in Karnataka, particularly those working in deep technology.
Shivakumar said the government sees AI being applied in areas including healthcare, scientific research, tax administration and examination security.
“Karnataka has consistently led India's technology journey. We are now laying the foundation to become the global hub for responsible artificial intelligence by bringing together government, academia, industry and startups to build solutions that are innovative, trusted and designed for public good,” he said.
Shivakumar added that he looked forward to converting the discussions into a partnership that delivers measurable outcomes for the state’s citizens.
Anthropic recently announced that it will make its Claude family of AI models available with in-country inference in India through Amazon Bedrock in the coming weeks, allowing requests to be processed on servers located within the country.
The company said the move is aimed at organisations in regulated sectors that require greater control over where customer data is processed.
- ReNew Pledges ₹80,000 Cr for Green Data Centre to Fuel India’s AI Push
- Mars Opens Hyderabad GCC With Genpact to Expand Digital, AI Capabilities
- Shield AI Opens Bengaluru Engineering Office to Build Defence Autonomy Software
- Adobe, Google Expand AI Partnership Across Creative and Productivity Tools
- Google Launches Gemini 4 Hydrogen for Faster Coding and AI Workflows
- Kalshi to Develop Trading Platform for Compute Futures: Report