Prof V Kamakoti

Prof V Kamakoti has led IIT Madras as the Director since January 2022 and was appointed by the Union Commerce Ministry as Chairman of a Taskforce on leveraging AI for development across various fields in 2017. He is the creator of SHAKTI, India’s first indigenous microprocessor, and has been instrumental in positioning IIT Madras as India’s foremost academic institution for applied AI.

Under his directorship, the institute hosts AI4Bharat, a premier open-source initiative focused on Indic-language AI, and is collaborating with Sarvam AI to build India’s first sovereign large language model. Notably, IIT Madras houses the Centre for Responsible AI (CeRAI) and the Wadhwani School of Data Science and AI.

In January, Kamakoti participated in the signing of a ₹10,000 crore MoU between Tamil Nadu and Sarvam AI for India’s first Sovereign AI Park.