Odisha Showcases AI Initiatives at AI Impact Summit 2026
A key highlight of Odisha’s participation is its strategic collaboration with Sarvam AI, aimed at building sovereign AI capabilities with a special focus on population-scale Odia-language AI applications
Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government is projecting itself as one of India’s early movers in artificial intelligence (AI) adoption by showcasing its policy vision, institutional preparedness and real-world deployments at the India AI Impact Summit 2026, being held at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi from February 16 to 20.
Through a dedicated Odisha Pavilion themed “Odisha – From AI to Impact,” the state is highlighting its transition from experimental pilots to scalable AI-driven solutions across governance, healthcare, agriculture, education, disaster management and urban infrastructure. Officials said the exhibits are anchored in a structured implementation framework backed by institutional capacity-building, data governance protocols and public-sector use cases that have moved beyond proof-of-concept stages.
The pavilion is designed to demonstrate Odisha’s effort to leverage AI not merely as an emerging technology but as a tool for measurable public service delivery and socio-economic transformation. The presentation focuses on outcome-oriented governance, long-term digital public infrastructure and cross-departmental integration of AI tools, positioning Odisha as a potential model for sub-national AI deployment in India.
A key highlight of Odisha’s participation is its strategic collaboration with Sarvam AI, aimed at building sovereign AI capabilities with a special focus on population-scale Odia-language AI applications. The partnership also seeks to strengthen advanced AI infrastructure and computing capacity within the state, reflecting a broader push to ensure AI adoption remains inclusive, locally relevant and accessible to citizens.
More than 10 innovation startups and ecosystem partners are being showcased at the pavilion, including applied AI ventures, research organisations, technology service providers and government-linked initiatives. Together, they demonstrate Odisha’s expanding innovation pipeline, its startup–government collaboration model and efforts to democratise access to AI tools and digital resources at the grassroots level.
Odisha’s Minister for Electronics and Information Technology, Mukesh Mahaling, said the state’s early policy push had helped it gain national visibility in the AI ecosystem. He noted that Odisha became the first state in the country to approve an AI policy in the Cabinet, leading to the hosting of a Regional AI Impact Summit and now participation at the national-level summit in New Delhi.
