Dayananda Sagar University has signed a memorandum of understanding with NVIDIA to establish what it describes as India’s first AI-first factory, aimed at enabling production-grade artificial intelligence development within an academic environment.
The initiative will be powered by NVIDIA’s next-generation AI supercomputing platform, Blackwell, designed for large-scale AI model training and inference. The project is positioned to support AI-driven innovation across education, multidisciplinary research and the development of sovereign AI capabilities from India.
The collaboration seeks to address some of India’s key structural challenges in artificial intelligence, including limited access to advanced computing infrastructure, heavy reliance on foreign AI models, gaps in domestic supercomputing capabilities and the disconnect between academic learning and real-world AI deployment.
Dayananda Sagar University said it is investing more than ₹175 crore in the AI-first factory, which will function as a production-grade AI computing environment on campus. The goal is to align academic research and teaching with enterprise-level AI development, allowing students, researchers and industry partners to work on real-world AI systems.
Dr. D. Premachandra Sagar, Founder and Pro-Chancellor of Dayananda Sagar University, said the partnership represents a fundamental shift in how the institution approaches AI innovation. He said the NVIDIA-powered infrastructure would enable hands-on work on real-world AI systems while contributing to national priorities around Aatmanirbhar Bharat, responsible AI and future-ready talent creation.
Alongside the AI factory, the university plans to establish six industry-integrated Centres of Excellence with a capital investment exceeding ₹50 crore. These centres will focus on healthcare, engineering, defence, cybersecurity, semiconductors, smart mobility and sustainability, serving as hubs for applied AI research and industry collaboration.
To operationalise the initiative, Dayananda Sagar University is hiring chief architects who will be responsible for designing AI platforms, building specialised teams and translating raw compute capacity into deployable intelligence systems.
The university has also launched the DSU–Siemens Sustainability & Net Zero Collaboration, integrating technologies from Siemens to develop sustainable campus infrastructure and climate-resilient systems as part of its broader AI and digital transformation agenda.
As part of the programme, Dayananda Sagar University aims to skill around 20,000 students across disciplines in emerging AI roles, including machine learning applications, generative AI and large language model development, MLOps, AI product architecture and domain-specific AI use cases spanning healthcare, cybersecurity, robotics and smart systems.
The initiative underscores the growing role of private universities in building India’s AI infrastructure and talent pipeline, as the country pushes to strengthen its position in the global AI ecosystem.
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