May I request all the honorable dignitaries to kindly take their seats as a token of our reverence and appreciation. We shall now proceed with the felicitation of our honorable chief guest. I kindly request honorable Shri Pawas Sai, the founder and the president of Vidya Pratishtan, to felicitate today's chief guest, honorable Shri Gautam Adani, the founder and chairman of Adani Group.
Thank you, sir. May I now request honorable Mrs. Supriyata, member of parliament Lok Sabha, to felicitate honorable Dr. Priti Adani, chairperson of Adani Foundation.
May I now request the vice president of Vidya Pratishtan, honorable Advocate A. Prabhunis, to kindly deliver the welcome address.
Good morning to all of you. Honorable chief guest of this function, Gautam Adani ji, honorable Priti Adani, honorable Sharad Pawar, honorable Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Dada Pawar, Supriya, Sunetra, all the members of the executive committee, the president of Baramati Municipality, and all the dignitaries on the dais. Sir, all the members of the executive committee including honorable Sharad Pawar, as well as those gathered here for this function, we give you a warm and cordial welcome to our chief guest, honorable Gautam Adani and Priti Adani. Sir, the graciousness shown in accepting our invitation for the inauguration of the building Sharad Chandra Pawar Center of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence is not commendable for you, but we are really obliged for the same. Sir, as of now, 750 students have enrolled for this, and in the coming year, around 2,000 students shall take degrees like BTech, MTech, PhD. Sir, you have just witnessed the up-to-date laboratories as well as the classrooms. Sir, we are having five-star facilities for the coming students who are going to join this in artificial intelligence. Sir, we have no hesitation in acknowledging your esteemed support and guidance, but for which the India we have had taken would have been a distant dream. We are proud of your services to the nation, as thousands and hundreds of thousands of employees are working in your industry units. I cherish with an urgent hope at my heart that the same guidance and the same support will be continued for the years to come. Thank you very much.
The Adani Group is India's largest and highest rated infrastructure portfolio. It is also the world's fastest growing diversified business group. One of India's most iconic names, Adani has a multi-continental presence with major operations and investments across the world, including in Australia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Tanzania, and Israel. Headquartered in Ahmedabad, the group was founded in 1988 by Gautam Adani, a first generation entrepreneur who rose to international prominence from humble beginnings. Mr. Adani is India's first founder to lead a business group to a market capitalization of a hundred billion and also $200 billion. The majority of the Adani group's assets and investments are in core infrastructure. This includes a mega scale investment of a hundred billion dollars by 2030 targeted at equitable clean energy initiatives like renewable power, evacuation lines, green hydrogen, and green infrastructure. The group's pan India presence spans 22 states governed by different parties spanning India's broad political spectrum, serving a user base of 320 million citizens through its core infra platform. Every Adani business is a market leader. Adani is the world's largest developer of renewable power. The group is India's largest private player in ports, logistics, airports, gas distribution, defense, food, FMCG, thermal power generation, power transmission, power distribution, and redevelopment. Adani is also in expressway development, online and television media, and metals like copper. Adani is also India's second largest cement manufacturer. The Adani ports division, growing at three times the industry average, includes 14 ports and terminals in India and abroad with a volume target of a billion metric tons by 2030. Adani's Mundra port is one of the world's largest ports and is already India's largest port. The Adani portfolio has eight airports including the Mumbai and Navi Mumbai International Airport and handles 25% of India's passenger traffic and 33% of cargo, underscoring its pivotal role in the nation's infrastructure development. The redevelopment of Dharavi, which Adani is leading, is one of the world's most challenging infrastructure projects. In energy, Adani is leading one of the world's most extraordinary green energy transitions in Gujarat's Kutch. Adani is executing the world's largest renewable energy installation with an incredible 30 gigawatts of capacity. This hybrid solar-wind renewable park will generate over 80 billion units of electricity annually to power over 16 million homes. That's more homes than in Delhi and Mumbai combined. This global benchmark for sustainable generation of clean energy will also help India avoid 58 million tons of CO2 emissions every year. By 2025, Adani will be the world's largest solar power company, and by 2030, also the world's largest renewables company. With over 45,000 employees and over 300,000 direct and indirect workers, the Adani portfolio of companies is aligned with India's socioeconomic growth policies, focusing on massive infrastructure development, middle class consumption, and sustainability. Adani businesses have become key enablers of the national economy, accelerating India's growth momentum and providing essential services to its citizens. Through the Adani Foundation, its philanthropic arm, the Adani Group serves the less privileged sections of Indian society. With a dedicated network of skilled volunteers and social workers, the Adani Foundation touches over 7 million lives and addresses critical needs in underserved areas like health, nutrition, education, child welfare, women's empowerment, and skill development. The Adani Group shares its founder Gautam Adani's core philosophy of growth with goodness.
The film we have just witnessed beautifully highlights the visionary leadership, resilience, and nation building spirit of the Adani Group. It stands as an inspiring testimony to how determination and innovation can drive India's growth on a global platform. May I now request Dr. S.B. Landiser, the acting principal of VPKBIT, to present a brief overview of the VP SPCOE AI building.
Good morning all, honorable dignitaries on the dais and my dear students. Let me tell you about the Center of Excellence that has just now been inaugurated by honorable Adani sahib. I will cover the view, the basic infrastructure, and the courses to be conducted under the Center of Excellence. The vision is to create a world-class facility with the blessings of honorable sahib and the support of all committee members. This facility is not available anywhere except in a few IITs. The mission is to act as an AI hub, supporting technology to build the nation. The objectives are covered in four categories: school of computing, academia-industry collaborations, workshops and training programs, and technology-driven innovation, IPR, and copyrights. The key benefits are accelerating innovation, developing a culture of research, and fostering cross-functional collaborations. We have laboratories for IoT, robotics, web, AI/ML, AR/VR, blockchain, and more. Applications target agriculture, environment, healthcare, education, energy, transport, and smart cities. Under the school of computing, we have a BTech in AI and Data Science with an intake of 300, an MTech, and a PhD program. We have signed MOUs with Washington State University, Boston University, the University of Norway, and others for certification programs. We will conduct skill development activities from one week to six weeks to enhance job opportunities. For research, we are applying for government funds, seeking industry collaborations, and establishing startup incubation centers. Internships from 3 months to 1 year are compulsory. We have 12 laboratories including IML, quantum AI, AR/VR, NLP, and data science. We have already conducted three boot camps on drone, AR/VR, and IML, benefiting over 600 students. Faculty development programs are also conducted regularly. We have a digital twin laboratory and an AI incubation center. We have collaborations with national and international institutes and industry partners. I thank Professor Moan Kle, Professor Pony from IITs, and Mr. Vivek for their support.
Thank you, sir, for the insightful and comprehensive overview of the VP SPCOE AI building. It has given us a clear understanding of the vision, planning, and purpose behind this remarkable innovative VPS COE AI center in Baramati. Every landmark stands as a testimony to thoughtful design and meticulous planning. We are privileged to felicitate the VPS COE AI building architect and the core team members of Vidya who have played a pivotal role in shaping this remarkable building. I request honorable Shri Gautam Adani to felicitate Shri Sunil Patil, the principal architect engineer. I also request sir to felicitate Shri Rajendra, civil engineer of Vidya Pratishtan. I request honorable Shri Adani to felicitate Shri Datatrihaji Pawa, electrical engineer, Vidya Pratishtan. I request sir to felicitate Shri Sachin, IT analyst, Vidya Pratishtan Engineering College. I also request sir to felicitate Shri Mahadev Balgu, civil engineer, Vidya Pratishtan. I request sir to felicitate Sri Satish B.B. Manage and their team for their exemplary work.
It is with great pride and honor that we proceed to the unveiling of the Copyright Drive 2025 Edition One, a thoughtful initiative aimed at creating awareness, protecting creative work, and fostering respect for intellectual ownership. May I request all the esteemed dignitaries on the dais to unveil the Copyright Drive 2025 Edition One and IPR Repository. A gratitude to the visionary leadership of Sri Sharad Chandra Pawar. It is a remarkable achievement by the students and faculty members of VPKBIT for filing more than 300 copyrights through the recently conducted copyright drive. The participation of over 1,200 students and 100 faculty members of Vidya Pratishtan demonstrates the institute's vibrant academic culture and its dedication.
On behalf of Vidya's management, staff, and students, we gratefully acknowledge the generous donation of the first installment of 1.5 crores for a research project to Vidya Pratishtan's College of Agricultural Biotechnology, Vidyanagri Baramati, by Baramati Waste Management Private Limited. The total project is 18.5 crores. I kindly request Sri Nitin Tundi Patil, founder and director of Baramati Waste Management Private Limited, to come forward and hand over the check to honorable Shri Pawas.
Behind every successful man there is an extraordinarily patient woman, and a classic example of strength and resilience is Priti Adani. We are really happy that you have come here today.
May I now request honorable Shri Gautam Adani, the visionary industrialist, a transformative leader in global business, the founder and chairman of Adani Group, to address the audience through his inspiring words.
Namaskar. Most respected Sri Sharad Chandra Pawar, honorable Sri Ajit Dada, esteemed Supriya ji, Sunetra ji, distinguished dignitaries on the dais, respected faculty members, and my dear young student friends. Thank you for inviting me on this momentous occasion. This inauguration of the Vidya Pratishtan Sharad Chandra Pawar Artificial Intelligence Center of Excellence is indeed a historic moment, and it is an honor to be here. Baramati stands as a symbol of transformation with limitless potential, all made possible by the vision of an extraordinary leader, my mentor, Sri Sharad Chandra Pawar. I have been blessed to know Pawar sahib for almost more than three decades, and what I have learned from him has no parallel. But beyond knowledge, it is his wisdom, his affection, and his deep empathy that leave the strongest imprint. That is why for me, he has always been a mentor in the truest sense. Having visited Baramati dozens of times, I can say with absolute conviction that what Pawar sahib has achieved here goes beyond just local development by transforming agriculture, strengthening cooperatives, encouraging entrepreneurship, building educational institutions, establishing industry policy, and doing so in an unparalleled integrated manner. Pawar sahib has turned Baramati into a living blueprint for the whole of Bharat to learn from. But then, as I look back, Pawar sahib was never an exception. It was a reflection of how he thought about the direction Bharat should be taking. In his role as a national leader, Pawar sahib has shaped our nation's agriculture policy, food security, cooperative institutions, and rural economy, and did so at critical moments when the nation needed both stability and reform. Whether as a chief minister, union minister, or going across party lines, Pawar's leadership has always reflected a rare ability to balance ground realities with the national agenda. Leaders like him remind us that good politics is not about slogans. It is about understanding that a nation does not rise through isolated victories but through the steady alignment of its people, its institutions, and its resources. When farmers are empowered, markets stabilize. When institutions are trusted, policies endure. When entrepreneurship is enabled, jobs are created. And when regions are strengthened, the nation stands taller. And today, as would be expected, the leader who transformed Baramati's soil now looks to yet again transform its future. While the seeds of yesterday were sown in the earth, the seeds of tomorrow will be sown in algorithms. This is what I will now talk about. My dear friends, human progress does not move in a straight line. It advances in leaps. Each leap propelled by a technology revolution that first unsettles society and then rebuilds at a far higher level of capability. The first industrial revolution harnessed the power of steam and mechanization. The second brought electrification and mass production. The third connected the world through digital computing and the internet. Today we are living through the fourth industrial revolution, an age defined by artificial intelligence. What history teaches us is that every such transition carries two opposing forces: extraordinary opportunity and profound anxieties. Fear of displacement, fear of irrelevance, fear of giving up control to systems we do not yet fully understand. These fears are not a sign of weakness. They are deeply human. They must be recognized, understood, and addressed with honesty and responsibility, because history is remarkably consistent on one fact: technologies do not destroy work. They first disrupt roles and then expand possibility. The first industrial revolution increased employment in Britain by over five times. The second created mass manufacturing, logistics, and modern management jobs, absorbing millions into a new middle class. The third, the digital revolution, did not eliminate work. It accelerated innovation and produced software, services, platforms, and entrepreneurship that now employ hundreds of millions globally. Looking back, each industrial revolution created far more jobs than it depleted by unlocking entirely new industries and business models that were previously unimaginable. Bharat's own experience offers clear evidence. The mobile revolution, much as everyone had feared, did not destroy jobs. Instead, it multiplied them at a massive scale. When smartphones and low-cost data reached ordinary Bharatiyas, it released an enormous surge of economic energy at the grassroots. The numbers are indisputable. Between 1991 and 2024, Bharat added over 230 million non-farm jobs, the majority created after the spread of digital infrastructure. For example, Flipkart was not built on legacy retail. It was born from a mobile-first discovery of digital commerce. Ola did not own cars. It unlocked idle assets by stitching together payments and locations. Swiggy turned neighborhood kitchens into city-scale enterprises. Paytm and PhonePe transformed every Kirana store into a financial node. None of these models were visible before mobile penetration. They did not arise from policy alone or capital alone. They emerged when capability reached the common citizen. And therefore, I can confidently say that artificial intelligence will now represent the next and far more powerful leap, because if mobile gave Bharat greater access, AI will give Bharat greater capability. Let me explain. Jan Dhan and UPI enabled financial access and inclusion. Aadhaar established digital identity, and mobile connectivity allowed us to leapfrog decades of physical infrastructure. And now AI is set to become the fourth foundation, embedding capability, decision making, and productivity into every corner of the nation. Imagine that over this decade, as 1.4 billion Bharatiyas start to carry AI-powered intelligence in the palm of their hands, progress will no longer be linear. It will compound, accelerate, and explode. A farmer will no longer be just a cultivator but become a one-person enterprise using AI to read soil and crop health, anticipate hyper-local weather, optimize inputs, negotiate prices, manage logistics, and hedge risk in real time. A homemaker in a tier-three town will be able to create and scale a global micro brand using nothing but her voice, while AI designs products, ensures compliance, runs marketing, manages supply chain, and handles payments seamlessly in the background. The possibilities are endless. Skill and scale, once separated by geography, will collapse into a single interface, and I can say with confidence that this is not an incremental change. This is an explosion of possibility limited only by human ambition, because every starting point and background will matter less than our capabilities. The world of AI will ensure that where you are born will no longer limit how far you can go. What will matter is how well you learn, adapt, and use intelligence, both human and artificial. This is the true meaning of the AI moment. Not just a change in technology, but a civilizational lift in capability. A moment where intelligence becomes accessible to every citizen, enabling a billion Bharatiya minds to move from dependence to creation, and thereby establishing the most inclusive and accelerated growth era our nation has ever known. However, my friends, as history has often shown us, every great technology leap is also a double-edged knife. And the fourth industrial revolution driven by AI is no exception, because growth without sovereignty creates dependence, and progress without control creates risk. My dear friends, while job creation is vital, a nation of 1.4 billion people cannot afford to place its jobs, data, culture, and collective intelligence at the mercy of foreign algorithms and foreign balance sheets. While AI does enhance productivity, it also concentrates economic might, informational power, and decision-making authority at a scale humanity has never encountered before. The greatest risk of this AI age is not that machines will think like humans, but that humans will let machines think for them. And across the world today, we can already see this reality unfolding. The strategic competition between the United States and China has made one fact clear: AI is no longer just a technology race. It is a contest for global domination. Semiconductors have become strategic assets. Data centers have become critical infrastructure. Foundational AI models have become instruments of influence. Therefore, if Bharat does not build its own AI models, its own compute infrastructure, and its own intelligence ecosystem, then our behaviors, preferences, markets, and decisions will be extracted, trained upon, and monetized by other nations. Technology dominance is now the key lever of influence, and in the years ahead, mastery over AI will be the greatest source of power, wealth, and national freedom. This is the new battleground. Bharat must therefore approach artificial intelligence not as a convenience but as a strategic national capability, built in Bharat, governed in Bharat, and aligned with Bharat's national interest. And it is for this very reason that the Sharad Chandra Pawar AI Center of Excellence arrives at a moment of immense significance, as Bharat looks to steer herself to the forefront of the global AI revolution. My dear friends, the AI future is not something that will automatically arrive in Bharat. It is something our nation must build. And I would now like to share how we at the Adani Group are building and participating in the AI revolution on both the supply side, that creates sovereign capability, and the demand side, where AI is deployed at the infrastructure level. Let me begin with the supply side and talk about the underlying dependencies. AI depends on data centers. Data centers depend on energy, and energy is key to national sovereignty. We recognized as early as 2020 that data centers would soon become as essential to Bharat as highways, ports, airports, and power plants. They would no longer be seen as just technology capabilities but would become the intelligence infrastructure needed for sovereignty. These are now the factories of intelligence that will shape productivity and security and protect our economic power. At the same time, we saw clearly that the biggest constraint to the growth of data centers would not be capital or land but energy, and more specifically, clean, reliable, and affordable green energy. It was at a conference in Singapore in 2020 that I stated that the upcoming energy demand from data centers would far exceed anything the world had witnessed. For us, this was not just a market forecast. It was an opportunity as well as a call for nation building, and therefore we made a critical choice to invest 75 billion US dollars into the energy transition years ahead of the curve to prepare for a technology revolution that we saw as inevitable. And while much of the world is constrained by high energy costs, we enter this decade with a structural advantage through the world's most integrated green energy ecosystem that we have now built. We are positioned to supply the world's least cost green electrons. Much of it is being generated at the world's largest single-site renewable energy park in Kutch, Gujarat. This park is spread over 520 square kilometers with a peak capacity of 30 gigawatts. Also, with 15 ports across Bharat's coastline, we are uniquely positioned to serve as a primary landing destination for global undersea cables. And through our national transmission networks, we can connect many of the data centers within the country, creating a digital backbone that is resilient, scalable, and sovereign. This integrated vision has made us the fastest growing data center platform in Bharat with the largest order book in the country. But more importantly, it positions Bharat not merely as a consumer of artificial intelligence but as a builder, host, and exporter of intelligence. Let me now speak about the demand side of AI and why it matters to you as researchers and students. The most important question in AI today is not what a model can do. Large language models have already shown that they can write, read, summarize, and predict. Real transformation begins when the AI models step into the real world into airports, ports, power grids, factories, logistics corridors, and cities. That is where AI stops being a tool you study and starts becoming a system that you operate. This is where the value of AI truly explodes. I call this the industrialization of AI. At the Adani Group, we operate at an integrated scale that very few organizations in the world do. We run Bharat's largest ports and container terminals. We operate the country's largest private power generation capacity and the largest renewable energy ecosystem. We have built the largest solar manufacturing platform, the largest copper smelter, and the largest privately managed airport network within Bharat. And my young friends, why does this matter to you? Because very few places in the world would allow young engineers, researchers, and students to work at the intersections of physical infrastructure, energy systems, industrial manufacturing, logistics networks, and digital platforms at such a national scale. This makes our ecosystem a living laboratory for what I call industrial AI that addresses large-scale real-world problems. For example, how do you use LLMs to predict failures before a power grid goes down? How do you use computer vision to optimize ports where berth capacity is a constraint? How do you use AI to make airports safer, faster, and more human? How do you use AI agents to reduce energy loss, emissions, and waste? I can confidently say that in the months ahead, AI will transform how we procure, how we build, how we operate, how we maintain assets, and how we serve our customers. And the people who will design these systems will not be abstract high-level experts. They will mostly be students like you who are native AI citizens. And this is precisely where our partnership with the Sharad Chandra Pawar AI Center of Excellence finds its deeper meaning. So it is in this spirit that I am pleased to share that we are entering into a transformative partnership and formally signing an MOU with Vidya Pratishtan Baramati. This partnership is a commitment to build applied technological capability where AI research, engineering, and execution move together in an integrated fashion. Needless to say, this partnership carries forward the legacy of Pawar sahib, always rooted in institution building, long-term thinking, and the belief that empowering young minds is the most sustainable way to build Bharat. So my young friends, as I start to wrap up, I urge you to remember that Pawar sahib has built you this AI institute ready to take on the world. This institute has given you the compass to show you the path, and the path that you choose will decide how Bharat will shape her future. Every era has had a unique ask of its citizens. This era of AI is demanding your capability: the capability to think independently, the capability to create with your own hands, and the capability to give India a new direction. So rise, not just to read the chapters but to become the author of Bharat's story. Rise, not just to walk the path but to build the roads for Bharat's tomorrow. Rise, not just for personal success but to anchor the boldest dreams of Bharat. Rise, not just to celebrate history but to build the momentum to define Bharat. Rise, not just to sing the anthem but to be the wind to carry Bharat's flag higher. This is the moment. This is the opportunity, and this moment belongs to you. Jai Maharashtra! Jai Hind!
Thank you, sir, for your guidance and vision on the industrialization of artificial intelligence.
Namaste. Today will always be remembered in the history of Vidya Pratishtan as a landmark occasion where intellect, technology, education and industry have come together on the same platform. On this auspicious occasion, on behalf of the entire Pratishtan family, I would like to express our sincere gratitude. We are deeply thankful for the continuous support and the support of the imminent personality Shri Gautam Adani, and we are truly honored by his gracious presence. We are also truly honored that Dr. Priti Adani has graced the occasion with her presence. We extend our heartfelt thanks to all the dignitaries present on the dais. I sincerely thank each and every one of you for contributing to the success of this event. Last but not least, my special thanks to all of you present here and to the citizens of Baramati who have always shown enthusiasm in supporting and embracing the new technologies and positive changes. Thank you.
As we walk through these thoughtfully designed spaces like labs, research centers, data science and business analytics, AI for agriculture mining, drone and automation, IoT, cloud and edge computing, NLP, quantum AI, AR and VR, incubation center, we will witness how vision has been transformed into reality where ideas meet intelligence and learning meets innovation. With the launch of this AI center, our Vidya Pratishtan takes a bold and visionary step towards preparing our students for a rapidly evolving digital world. This iconic AI building stands as a symbol of Vidya's commitment to innovation, future-ready education and technological excellence, designed to nurture curiosity and creativity for the innovators of tomorrow.
Light has always been a symbol of knowledge, wisdom, and hope. It marks the beginning of an auspicious occasion, invoking divine blessings and dispelling the darkness of ignorance. May I request all the honorable dignitaries to kindly take the seat of the dais. As a token of our reverence and appreciation, we shall now proceed with the felicitation of our honorable chief guest. I kindly request honorable Shri Pawas Sai, the founder and the president of Vidya Pratishtan, to felicitate today's chief guest, honorable Shri Gautam Adani, the founder and chairman of Adani Group.
Thank you, sir. May I now request honorable Mrs. Supriyata, member of the parliament, Lok Sabha, to felicitate honorable Dr. Priti Adani ma'am, chairperson of Adani Foundation.
May I now request the vice president of Vidya Pratishtan, honorable advocate A. Prabhunis, sir, to kindly deliver the welcome address.
Good morning to all of you. Honorable chief guest of this Pratishtan, Gautam ji Adani. Honorable Priti Adani, Honorable Sharad Chandra Pawar, Honorable Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Dada Pawar, Supriya Sule, Sunil, all the members of the executive committee, the president of Baramati Municipality, and all the dignitaries of the dais. Sir, all the members of the executive committee including honorable Sharad Pawar as well as those who are gathered over here for this function. We give you a warm and cordial welcome to our chief guest, honorable Gautam ji Adani and Priti Adani. Sir, the graciousness shown in accepting our invitation for the inauguration of the building Sharad Chandra Pawar Center of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence is not commendable for you, but we are really obliged for the same. Sir, as of now, 750 students have enrolled for this, and in the coming year, around 2,000 students shall take degrees like BTech, MTech, PhD. Sir, you have just witnessed the up-to-date laboratories as well as the classrooms. Sir, we are having five-star facilities for the coming students who are going to join this in artificial intelligence. Sir, we have no hesitation in acknowledging your esteemed support and guidance, but for which the initiative we have taken would have been a distant dream. We are proud of your services to the nation as thousands and hundreds of thousands of employees are working in your industry units. I cherish with an ardent hope at my heart that the same guidance and the same support will be continued for the years to come. Thank you very much.
Screening of film on Adani Group.
The Adani Group is India's largest and highest rated infrastructure portfolio. It is also the world's fastest growing diversified business group. One of India's most iconic names, Adani is a multicontinental presence with major operations and investments across the world including in Australia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Tanzania, and Israel. Headquartered in Ahmedabad, the group was founded in 1988 by Gautam Adani, a first generation entrepreneur who rose to international prominence from humble beginnings. Mr. Adani is India's first founder to lead a business group to a market capitalization of a hundred billion dollars and also $200 billion. The majority of the Adani group's assets and investments are in core infrastructure. This includes a mega scale investment of a hundred billion dollars by 2030 targeted at equitable clean energy initiatives like renewable power, evacuation lines, green hydrogen and green infrastructure. The group's pan India presence spans 22 states governed by different parties spanning India's broad political spectrum, serving a user base of 320 million citizens through its core infra platform. Every Adani business is a market leader. Adani is the world's largest developer of renewable power. The group is India's largest private player in ports, logistics, airports, gas distribution, defense, food, FMCG, thermal power generation, power transmission, power distribution and redevelopment. Adani is also in expressway development, online and television media and metals like copper. Adani is also India's second largest cement manufacturer. The Adani ports division, growing at three times the industry average, includes 14 ports and terminals in India and abroad with a volume target of a billion metric tons by 2030. Adani's Mundra port is one of the world's largest ports and is already India's largest port. The Adani portfolio has eight airports including the Mumbai and Navi Mumbai International Airport and handles 25% of India's passenger traffic and 33% of cargo, underscoring its pivotal role in the nation's infrastructure development. The redevelopment of Dharavi which Adani is leading is one of the world's most challenging infrastructure projects. In energy, Adani is leading one of the world's most extraordinary green energy transitions in Gujarat's Kutch. Adani is executing the world's largest renewable energy installation with an incredible 30 gigawatt of capacity. This hybrid solar wind renewable park will generate over 80 billion units of electricity annually to power over 16 million homes. That's more homes than in Delhi and Mumbai combined. This global benchmark for sustainable generation of clean energy will also help India avoid 58 million tons of CO2 emissions every year. By 2025, Adani will be the world's largest solar power company. And by 2030, also the world's largest renewables company. With over 45,000 employees and over 300,000 direct and indirect workers, the Adani portfolio of companies is aligned with India's socioeconomic growth policies focusing on massive infrastructure development, middle class consumption and sustainability. Adani businesses have become key enablers of the national economy, accelerating India's growth momentum and providing essential services to its citizens. Through the Adani Foundation, its philanthropic arm, the Adani Group serves the less privileged sections of Indian society. With a dedicated network of skilled volunteers and social workers, the Adani Foundation touches over 7 million lives and addresses critical needs in underserved areas like health, nutrition, education, child welfare, women's empowerment, and skill development. The Adani Group shares its founder Gautam Adani's core philosophy of growth with goodness.
The film we have just witnessed beautifully highlights the visionary leadership, resilience and nation building spirit of the Adani Group. It stands as an inspiring testimony to how determination and innovation can drive India's growth on a global platform. May I now request Dr. S.B. Landiser, the acting principal of VPKBIT, to present the brief overview of the VP SPCOE AI building.
Please go for the presentation repeating mode. So good morning all, honorable dignitaries on the dais and off the dais, and my dear students. Let me tell you about the center of excellence that is just now inaugurated by honorable Adani sahab. So if I just go for the view and the basic info in infrastructure that is to be contained inside that and what kind of courses that we will conduct under the center of excellence, that is to be covered under my presentation. So introductions, then the proposed courses, laboratories, infrastructures, and the collaborations that we will try to see in this particular case. Yeah, just if you go for the vision, I can just tell you it is the world-class facility that we have created with the blessings of honorable sahab and with the support of all the committee members. So this facility, I can proudly tell you that it is not available in any one of the place other than the IITs. Only these facilities are available in the few IITs. Okay. So next is if you just look at the mission, mission of our to act as an AI hub because all technology that we have created, all laboratories that we have created inside that particular center of excellence which will support the technology to build up the nation in the future. Next slide. Yeah, the objective of this particular course, broadly the objective is to be covered into four different categories. One is the school of computing, then academia-industry collaborations, activity workshop seminar and training program that is to be conducted for the student and the technology-driven innovation, IPR, copyrights and so on. So the key benefits: we need to accelerate the innovation, we need to develop the culture of research and the few of the projects that we have shown to the honorable committee and today's guest regarding the kind of innovation our students are doing, they are putting the patents, they are going for the development of the copyrights and so on. So cross-functional collaborations and everything. Next, next slide. If you just look for this particular slide, this slide will tell you about the different kind of technology that is to be used and all laboratories are available at center of excellence like IoT, robotics, web, AI/ML, AR, VR, blockchain and all laboratories are available. Now by using those laboratories, by using those softwares, by using this particular technique, few applications are to be targeted in the industry like agriculture applications, environmental application, healthcare applications, educational applications, energy transport like smart city applications are to be covered under this. Next slide. So if you just look for the first target like school of computing, under the school of computing the course of AIDS, the B.Tech course of AIDS with intake of 300 has already been started last year. Next we have an M.Tech program in AIDS and a PhD program in AIDS. Next slide. We will go for a certification program in collaboration with the foreign universities and already I'm proud to inform you that already we have signed the MoU with the Washington State University, Boston University and some other university, University of Norway and other universities, and in collaboration with those universities the certification program of 6 month to one year will be conducted under the center of excellence. Next slide please. Skill development activities because without skill, getting a job is a big challenge. So you need to have a proper skill and for those we started under the center of excellence, we will conduct the skill from one week to six week. So those skills will be provided for all the students so that more job opportunities will be available for all the students in the future. These are about the skill different activities under the different center of excellence. Next slide. Now if you just come back to the fourth and very even the crucial part is regarding the research. Now in order to go for the research, we are applying for the government agencies for getting the fund. So we are looking for the industry collaborations. We are looking for the industry partnership, then the startup incubation centers and we can say that the IPR technology once this particular all setup will be available then the student can go for the IPR and copyright technology. Now the research that you can just see that the research is available in all the field including AI, embedded system, agriculture drone technology, automations, edge computing, all in all the places we need to have a scope for the research. Next slide. Now internship opportunity because this is very very important and as far as the NEP guidelines are concerned, the internship is compulsory for the starting from diploma student to the PhD student. So we have an internship model from 3 months, 6 month to one year, it depends upon their course curriculum. Next these are the laboratories that we have under the center of excellence starting from the IML then the quantum AI, AR/VR, natural language processing, data science. These are the 12 laboratories we have and I'm proud to say that of excellence, the Bharat employees are training, getting trained in our laboratories and the two robot excellence artificial intelligence and these are different robotics and the details will take much time but this is the structure about my each and every laboratory. This is an IML laboratory. Next is data science laboratory. Next is computer vision laboratory. Next is natural language processing laboratory, NLP. AI for agriculture mining and drone technology. Next IoT cloud and edge computing. Next quantum artificial intelligence laboratory, augmented AR/VR laboratory, HPC. Again, it is proud for me, already we have started working on this and the CAD has conducted the three boot camps on the different technology. One is on the drone, one is on the AR/VR and one is on the IML. The three boot camps for the students have already conducted and more than 600 plus students got the benefit out of that. So next we have faculty development programs also that we have conducted on these topics because these topics are very hot and new for everyone. So we regularly conduct the faculty development program where the faculties are trained and this model they can pass on to the student. Then sustainable cities, we have a sustainable city, we can see that under that energy transport and the waste management all system will be taken into account. This is the digital twin laboratory. Just now I already told you about this particular laboratory and trainings that is going to be provided to the Bharat employee. Next AI center of incubation centers also we have under the center of excellency in our COE. Next there are a few glimpses of the infrastructures. Next slide. Now the collaborations, you can just see that we have industry collaborations. We have collaborations with a few national institutes and the international institutes and we have the collaboration with the industry partners. Next slide. Supports during this because in the last journey of four years and especially I was involved in the last one year. I have completed complete one year on this particular center and there are many more support that I have received from the professor, from the different IITs, especially thanks to the NES for providing all the supports for development of this particular center. Mr. Vivek Sans sir has given a lot of support for development of this particular center and many more names I cannot take each one, so many more names are to be included. Just click on this particular site so that I will show you the website and the website all details are available on the website. Click on this slide. At least you can go into any one of the tabs like courses, you can go into the courses tab. Next maybe in the internship model.
Yes. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you, sir, for the insightful and comprehensive overview of the VP SPCOE AI building. It has given us a clear understanding of the vision, the planning and the purpose behind this remarkable innovative VPS COE AI center in Baramati. Every landmark stands as a testimony to thoughtful design and meticulous planning. We are privileged to felicitate VPSCOE AI building architect and the core team members of Vidya Pratishtan who have played a pivotal role in shaping this remarkable building. I request honorable Shri Gautam Adani sir to felicitate Shri Sunil Patil, the principal architect engineer. I also request sir to felicitate Shri Rajendra, civil engineer of Vidya Pratishtan. I request honorable Shri Adani sir to felicitate Shri Datatrihaji Pawar, electrical engineer, Vidya Pratishtan. I do request sir to felicitate Shri Sachin, IT analyst, Vidya Pratishtan Engineering College. May also request sir to felicitate Shri Mahadev Balgu, civil engineer, Vidya Pratishtan. I request sir to felicitate Shri Satish BB, manager, and their team for their exemplary work.
Thank you, sir.
It is with great pride and honor that we proceed to the unveiling of the copyright drive 2025 edition one. A thoughtful initiative aimed at creating awareness, protecting creative work and fostering respect for intellectual ownership. May I request all the esteemed dignitaries on the dais to unveil the copyright drive 2025 edition one and IPR repository. A gratitude to the visionary leadership, Shri Sharad Chandra Gi Pawar. It's a remarkable achievement by the students, faculty members of VPKBIT for filing more than 300 copyrights through the recently conducted copyright drive. The participation of over 1,200 students and 100 faculty members of Vidya Pratishtan demonstrates the institute's vibrant academic culture and its dedication. Thank you all.
On behalf of Vidya's management, staff and students, we gratefully acknowledge the generous donation of the first installment of 1.5 crores for research project to Vidya's College of Agricultural Biotechnology, Vidyanagri Baramati by Baramati Waste Management Private Limited. The total project is 18.5 crores. I kindly request Sri Nitin Tundi Patil sir, founder and director of Baramati Waste Management Private Limited, to please come forward and hand over the check to honorable Shri Pawas.
Thank you, sir, for your generosity.
May I now request honorable Shri Gautam Adani sir, the visionary industrialist, a transformative leader in the global business, the founder and chairman of Adani Group, to address the audience through his inspiring words.
Namaskar. Most respected Sri Sharad Chandra Pawar ji. Honorable Sri Ajit Dada. Esteemed dignitaries on the dais, distinguished faculty members, and my dear young student friends. Thank you for inviting me on this momentous occasion. This inauguration of the Vidya Pratishtan Sharad Chandra Pawar Artificial Intelligence Center of Excellence is indeed a historic moment and it is an honor to be here. Baramati stands as a symbol of one such transformation with a limitless potential, all made possible by the vision of an extraordinary leader. I call my mentor, Sri Sharad Chandra Pawar. My dear friends, I have been blessed to have known Pawar sahab for almost more than three decades and what I have learned from him has no parallel. But beyond knowledge, it is his wisdom, his affection and his deep empathy that leaves the strongest imprint. That is why for me, he has always been a mentor in the truest sense. Having visited Baramati dozens of times, I can say with absolute conviction that what Pawar has achieved here goes beyond just local development by transforming agriculture, strengthening cooperatives, encouraging entrepreneurship, building educational institutions, establishing industry policy and doing so in an unparalleled integrated manner. Pawar has turned Baramati into a living blueprint for the whole of Bharat to learn from. But then, as I look back, Baramati for Pawar sahab was never an exception. It was a reflection of how he thought about the direction Bharat should be taking. In his role as a national leader, Pawar has shaped our nation's agriculture policy, food security, cooperative institutions and rural economy, and did so at critical moments when the nation needed both stability and reform. Whether as a chief minister, union minister or going across party lines, Pawar's leadership has always reflected a rare ability to balance ground realities with the national agenda. Leaders like him remind us that good politics is not about slogans. It is about understanding that a nation does not rise through isolated victories but through the steady alignment of its people, its institutions and its resources. When farmers are empowered, markets stabilize. When institutions are trusted, policies endure. When entrepreneurship is enabled, jobs are created. And when regions are strengthened, the nation stands taller. And today, as would be expected, the leader who transformed Baramati's soil now looks to yet again transform its future. While the seeds of yesterday were sown in the earth, the seeds of tomorrow will be sown in the algorithms. This is what I will now talk about. My dear friends, human progress does not move in a straight line. It advances in leaps. Each leap propelled by a technology revolution that first unsettles society and then rebuilds at a far higher level of capability. The first industrial revolution harnessed the power of steam and mechanization. The second brought electrification and mass production. The third connected the world through digital computing and the internet. Today we are living through the fourth industrial revolution, an age defined by artificial intelligence. What history teaches us is that every such transition carries two opposing forces: extraordinary opportunity and profound anxieties. Fear of displacement, fear of irrelevance, fear of giving up control to systems we do not yet fully understand. These fears are not a sign of weakness. They are deeply human. They must be recognized, understood and addressed with honesty and responsibility, because history is remarkably consistent on one fact: technologies do not destroy work. They first disrupt roles and then expand possibility. The first industrial revolution increased employment in Britain by over five times. The second created mass manufacturing, logistics, modern management jobs, absorbing millions into a new middle class. The third, the digital revolution, did not eliminate work. It accelerated innovation and produced software, services, platforms and entrepreneurship that now employ hundreds of millions globally. Looking back, each industrial revolution created far more jobs than it displaced by unlocking entirely new industries and business models that were previously not imaginable. Bharat's own experience offers clear evidence. The mobile revolution, much as everyone had feared, did not destroy jobs. Instead, it multiplied them at a massive scale. When smartphones and low-cost data reached ordinary Bharatiyas, it released an enormous surge of economic energy at the grassroots. The numbers are indisputable. Between 1991 and 2024, Bharat added over 230 million non-farm jobs, the majority created after the spread of digital infrastructure. For example, Flipkart has not built on legacy retail. It was born from a mobile-first discovery of digital commerce. Ola did not own cars. It unlocked idle assets by stitching together payments and locations. Swiggy turned neighborhood kitchens into city-scale enterprises. Paytm and FPE transformed every Kirana store into a financial node. None of these models were visible before mobile penetration. They did not arise from policy alone or capital alone. They emerged when capability reached the common citizen. And therefore, I can confidently say that artificial intelligence will now represent the next and far more powerful leap, because if mobile gave Bharat greater access, AI will give Bharat greater capability. Let me explain. Aadhaar and UPI enable financial access and inclusion. Aadhaar established digital identity and mobile connectivity allowed us to leapfrog decades of physical infrastructure. And now AI is set to become the fourth foundation, embedding capability, decision making and productivity into every corner of the nation. Imagine that over this decade, as 1.4 billion Bharatiyas start to carry AI-powered intelligence in the palm of their hands, progress will no longer be linear. It will compound, accelerate and explode. A farmer will no longer be just a cultivator but become a one-person enterprise using AI to read soil and crop health, anticipate hyper-local weather, optimize inputs, negotiate prices, manage logistics and hedge risk in real time. A homemaker in a tier-three town will be able to create and scale a global micro brand using nothing but her voice, while AI designs products, ensures compliance, runs marketing, manages supply chain and handles payment seamlessly in the background. The possibilities are endless. Skill and scale, once separated by geography, will collapse into a single interface. And I can say with confidence that this is not an incremental change. This is an explosion of possibility limited only by human ambition, because every starting point and background will matter less than our capabilities. The world of AI will ensure that where you are born will no longer limit how far you can go. What will matter is how well you learn, adapt and use intelligence, both human and artificial. This is the true meaning of the AI moment: not just a change in technology but a civilizational leap in capability, a moment where intelligence becomes accessible to every citizen, enabling a billion Bharatiya minds to move from dependence to creation, and thereby establishing the most inclusive and accelerated growth era our nation has ever known. However, my friends, as history has often shown us, every great technology leap is also a double-edged knife. And the fourth industrial revolution driven by AI is no exception, because growth without sovereignty creates dependence, and progress without control creates risk. My dear friends, while job creation is vital, a nation of 1.4 billion people cannot afford to place its jobs, collective intelligence at the mercy of foreign algorithms and foreign balance sheets. While AI does enhance productivity, it also concentrates economic might, informational power and decision-making authority at a scale humanity has never encountered before. The greatest risk of this AI age is not that machines will think like humans, but that humans will let machines think for them. And across the world today, we can already see this reality unfolding. Strategic competition between the United States and China has made one fact clear: AI is no longer just a technology race. It is a contest for global domination. Semiconductors have become strategic assets. Data centers have become critical infrastructure. Foundational AI models have become instruments of influence. Therefore, if Bharat does not build its own AI models, its own compute infrastructure and its own intelligence ecosystems, then our behaviors, preferences, markets and decisions will be extracted, trained upon and monetized by other nations. Technology dominance is now the key lever of influence, and in the years ahead, mastery over AI will be the greatest source of power, wealth and national freedom. This is the new battleground. Bharat must therefore approach artificial intelligence not as a convenience but as a strategic national capability built in Bharat, governed in Bharat and aligned with Bharat's national interest. And it is for this very reason that the Sharad Chandra Pawar AI Center of Excellence arrives at a moment of immense significance as Bharat looks to steer herself to the forefront of the global AI revolution. My dear friends, the AI future is not something that will automatically arrive in Bharat. It is something our nation must build. And I would now like to share how we at the Adani Group are building and participating in the AI revolution on both the supply side that creates sovereign capability and the demand side where AI is deployed at the infrastructure level. Let me begin with the supply side and talk about the underlying dependencies. AI depends on data centers. Data centers depend on energy, and energy is key to national sovereignty. We recognized this as early as 2020 that data centers would soon become as essential to Bharat as highways, ports, airports and power plants. They would no longer be seen as just technology capabilities but would become the intelligence infrastructure needed for sovereignty. These are now the factories of intelligence that will shape productivity and security and protect our economic power. At the same time, we saw clearly that the biggest constraint to the growth of data centers would not be capital or land but energy, and more specifically, clean, reliable and affordable green energy. It was at a conference in Singapore in 2020 that I stated that the upcoming energy demand from data centers would far exceed anything the world had witnessed. For us, this was not just a market forecast. It was an opportunity as well as a call for nation building. And therefore we made a critical choice to invest 75 billion US dollars into the energy transition years ahead of the curve to prepare for a technology revolution that we saw as inevitable. And while much of the world is constrained by high energy cost, we enter this decade with a structural advantage through the world's most integrated green energy ecosystem that we have now built. We are positioned to supply the world's least cost green electrons. Much of it is being generated at the world's largest single-site renewable energy park in Kutch, Gujarat. This park is spread over 520 square kilometers with a peak capacity of 30 gigawatts. Also, with 15 ports across Bharat's coastline, we are uniquely positioned to serve as a primary landing destination for global undersea cables. And through our national transmission networks, we can connect many of the data centers within the country, creating a digital backbone that is resilient, scalable and sovereign. This integrated vision has made us the fastest growing data center platform in Bharat with the largest order book in the country. But more importantly, it positions Bharat not merely as a consumer of artificial intelligence but as a builder, host and exporter of intelligence. Let me now speak about the demand side of AI and why it matters to you as researchers and students. The most important question in AI today is not what a model can do. Large language models have already shown that they can write, read, summarize and predict. Real transformation begins when the AI models step into the real world into airports, ports, power grids, factories, logistic corridors and cities. That is where AI stops being a tool you study and starts becoming a system that you operate. This is where the value of AI truly explodes. I call this the industrialization of AI. At the Adani Group, we operate at an integrated scale that very few organizations in the world do. We run Bharat's largest ports and container terminals. We operate the country's largest private power generation capacity and the largest renewable energy ecosystem. We have built the largest solar manufacturing platform, the largest copper smelter and the largest privately managed airport network within Bharat. And my young friends, why does this matter to you? Because very few places in the world would allow young engineers, researchers and students to work at the intersections of physical infrastructure, energy systems, industrial manufacturing, logistics networks and digital platforms at such a national scale. This makes our ecosystem a living laboratory for what I call industrial AI that addresses large-scale real-world problems. For example, how do you use LLMs to predict failures before a power grid goes down? How do you use computer vision to optimize ports where berth capacity is a constraint? How do you use edge AI to make airports safer, faster and more human? How do you use AI agents to reduce energy loss, emissions and waste? I can confidently say that in the months ahead, AI will transform how we procure, how we build, how we operate, how we maintain assets and how we serve our customers. And the people who will design these systems will not be abstract high-level experts. They will mostly be students like you who are native AI citizens. And this is precisely where our partnership with the Sharad Chandra Pawar Center of Excellence finds its deeper meaning. So it is in this spirit that I am pleased to share that we are entering into a transformative partnership and formally signing an MoU.
This partnership is a commitment to build applied technological capability where AI research, engineering and executions move together in an integrated fashion. Needless to say, this partnership carries forward the legacy of power, aligned in institution building, long-term thinking and the belief that empowering young minds is the most sustainable way to build Bharat.
So my young friends, as I start to wrap up, I urge you to remember: Pawasab has built you this AI institute, ready to take on the world. This institute has given you the compass to show you the path, and the path that you choose will decide how Bharat will shape her future.
Every era has had a unique aspect. This era of AI is demanding your capability: the capability to think independently, the capability to create with your own hands, and the capability to give India a new direction. So rise, not just to read the chapters, but to become the author of Bharat's story. Rise, not just to walk the path, but to build the roads for Bharat tomorrow. Rise, not just for personal success, but to anchor the boldest dreams of Bharat. Rise, not just to celebrate history, but to build the momentous to define Bharat. Rise, not just to sing the anthem, but be the wind to carry Bharat's flag higher. This is the moment. This is the opportunity, and this moment belongs to you. Jai Maharashtra, Jai Hind.
Thank you sir for your guidance and vision on industrialization of artificial intelligence.
To express our gratitude to all those who made today's event a grand success, I invite the secretary of Vidya Pratishtan, honorable advocate Nelma Guja ma'am, to present the vote of thanks.
Namaste. Today will always be remembered in the history of Vidya Pratishtan as a landmark occasion where intellect, technology, education and industry have come together on the same platform. On this auspicious occasion, on behalf of the entire Pratishtan family, I would like to express our sincere gratitude. We are deeply thankful for the continuous support of the eminent personality Shri Gautam Adani, and we are truly honored by his gracious presence. We are also truly honored that Dr. Priti Adani has graced the occasion with her presence. We extend our heartfelt thanks to all the dignitaries present on the dais. I sincerely thank each and every one of you for contributing to the success of this event. Last but not least, my special thanks to all of you present here and to the citizens of Baramati who have always shown enthusiasm in supporting and embracing new technologies and positive changes. Thank you.
As we walk through these thoughtfully designed spaces like labs, research centers, data science and business analytics, AI for agriculture, mining, drone and automation, IoT, cloud and edge computing, NLP, quantum AI, AR and VR, and the incubation center, we will witness how vision has been transformed into reality where ideas meet intelligence and learning meets innovation. With the launch of this AI center, our Vidya Pratishtan takes a bold and visionary step towards preparing our students for a rapidly evolving digital world. This iconic AI building stands as a symbol of Vidya Pratishtan's commitment to innovation, future-ready education and technological excellence, designed to nurture curiosity and creativity for the innovators of tomorrow.
May I request all the honorable dignitaries to kindly take their seats on the dais as a token of our reverence and appreciation. We shall now proceed with the felicitation of our honorable chief guest. I kindly request honorable Shri Pawasab, the founder and president of Vidya Pratishtan, to felicitate today's chief guest, honorable Shri Gautam Adani, the founder and chairman of the Adani Group.
Thank you, sir. May I now request honorable Mrs. Supriya Sule, member of parliament, Lok Sabha, to felicitate honorable Dr. Priti Adani ma'am, chairperson of the Adani Foundation.
May I now request the vice president of Vidya Pratishtan, honorable advocate A. Prabhunis, sir, to kindly deliver the welcome address.
Good morning to all of you. Honorable chief guest of this function, Gautamji Adani, honorable Priti Adani, honorable Sharadchandraji Pawar, honorable Deputy Chief Minister Ajitdada, Supriya Sule, Sunetra Pawar, all the members of the executive committee, the president of Baramati municipality, and all the dignitaries on the dais. Sir, all the members of the executive committee including honorable Sharad Pawar, as well as those gathered here for this function, we give you a warm and cordial welcome to our chief guest, honorable Gautamji Adani and Priti Adani. The graciousness shown in accepting our invitation for the inauguration of the building, the Sharadchandra Pawar Center of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence, is commendable and we are really obliged for the same. Sir, as of now, 750 students have enrolled for this, and in the coming year, about 2,000 students shall take degrees like BTech, MTech, PhD. Sir, you have just witnessed the up-to-date laboratories as well as the classrooms. Sir, we are having state-of-the-art facilities for the coming students who are going to join this in artificial intelligence. Sir, we have no hesitation in acknowledging your esteemed support and guidance, without which the initiative we have taken would have been a distant dream. We are proud of your services to the nation as hundreds of thousands of employees are working in your industrial units. I cherish an earnest hope that the same guidance and support will be continued for the years to come. Thank you very much.
The Adani Group is India's largest and highest-rated infrastructure portfolio. It is also the world's fastest-growing diversified business group. One of India's most iconic names, Adani has a multi-continental presence with major operations and investments across the world, including in Australia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Tanzania and Israel. Headquartered in Ahmedabad, the group was founded in 1988 by Gautam Adani, a first-generation entrepreneur who rose to international prominence from humble beginnings. Mr. Adani is India's first founder to lead a business group to a market capitalization of a hundred billion and also 200 billion. The majority of the Adani Group's assets and investments are in core infrastructure. This includes a mega-scale investment of a hundred billion dollars by 2030 targeted at equitable clean energy initiatives like renewable power, evacuation lines, green hydrogen and green infrastructure. The group's pan-India presence spans 22 states governed by different parties spanning India's broad political spectrum, serving a user base of 320 million citizens through its core infra platform. Every Adani business is a market leader. Adani is the world's largest developer of renewable power. The group is India's largest private player in ports, logistics, airports, gas distribution, defense, food, FMCG, thermal power generation, power transmission, power distribution and redevelopment. Adani is also in expressway development, online and television media and metals like copper. Adani is also India's second largest cement manufacturer. The Adani ports division, growing at three times the industry average, includes 14 ports and terminals in India and abroad with a volume target of a billion metric tons by 2030. Adani's Mundra port is one of the world's largest ports and is already India's largest port. The Adani portfolio has eight airports including the Mumbai and Navi Mumbai International Airport and handles 25% of India's passenger traffic and 33% of cargo, underscoring its pivotal role in the nation's infrastructure development. The redevelopment of Dharavi, which Adani is leading, is one of the world's most challenging infrastructure projects. In energy, Adani is leading one of the world's most extraordinary green energy transitions in Gujarat's Kutch. Adani is executing the world's largest renewable energy installation with an incredible 30 gigawatts of capacity. This hybrid solar-wind renewable park will generate over 80 billion units of electricity annually to power over 16 million homes, more homes than in Delhi and Mumbai combined. This global benchmark for sustainable generation of clean energy will also help India avoid 58 million tons of CO2 emissions every year. By 2025, Adani will be the world's largest solar power company, and by 2030, also the world's largest renewables company. With over 45,000 employees and over 300,000 direct and indirect workers, the Adani portfolio of companies is aligned with India's socioeconomic growth policies, focusing on massive infrastructure development, middle-class consumption and sustainability. Adani businesses have become key enablers of the national economy, accelerating India's growth momentum and providing essential services to its citizens. Through the Adani Foundation, its philanthropic arm, the Adani Group serves the less privileged sections of Indian society. With a dedicated network of skilled volunteers and social workers, the Adani Foundation touches over 7 million lives and addresses critical needs in underserved areas like health, nutrition, education, child welfare, women's empowerment and skill development. The Adani Group shares its founder Gautam Adani's core philosophy of growth with goodness.
The film we have just witnessed beautifully highlights the visionary leadership, resilience and nation-building spirit of the Adani Group. It stands as an inspiring testimony to how determination and innovation can drive India's growth on a global platform. May I now request Dr. S.B. Landiser, the acting principal of VPKBIT, to present a brief overview of the VP SPCOE AI building.
Good morning all. Honorable dignitaries on the dais and off the dais, and my dear students. Let me tell you about the Center of Excellence that has just been inaugurated by honorable Adani sab. So, if I go for the view and basic info on the infrastructure contained inside and what kind of courses we will conduct under the Center of Excellence, that will be covered in my presentation. So, introductions, then the proposed courses, laboratories, infrastructure and the collaborations that we will try to see in this particular case. Just if you go for the vision, I can tell you it is a world-class facility that we have created with the blessings of honorable sab and with the support of all the committee members. This facility, I can proudly tell you, is not available in any other place other than the IITs; only these facilities are available in a few IITs. Next is the mission: to act as an AI hub because all the technology we have created, all the laboratories we have created inside that particular Center of Excellence, will support the technology to build up the nation in the future. The objective of this particular course is broadly covered into four different categories: one is the School of Computing, then academia-industry collaborations, activities, workshops, seminars and training programs to be conducted for the students, and technology-driven innovation, IPR, copyrights and so on. The key benefits: we need to accelerate innovation, develop a culture of research, and a few of the projects we have shown to the honorable committee and today's guest regarding the kind of innovation our students are doing—they are filing patents, going for the development of copyrights and so on—cross-functional collaborations and everything. This slide will tell you about the different kinds of technology to be used, and all laboratories are available at the Center of Excellence, like IoT, robotics, web, AI/ML, AR/VR, blockchain and all. By using those laboratories, by using those softwares, by using these techniques, a few applications are to be targeted in the industry, like agriculture applications, environmental applications, healthcare applications, educational applications, energy transport, smart city applications. Next slide. The first target is the School of Computing. Under the School of Computing, the BTech course in AI and Data Science with an intake of 300 has already been started last year. Next, we have an MTech program in AI and Data Science and a PhD program in AI and Data Science. Next slide. We will go for a certification program in collaboration with foreign universities, and I am proud to inform you that we have already signed an MoU with Washington State University, Boston University, the University of Norway and other universities. In collaboration with those universities, certification programs of six months to one year will be conducted under the Center of Excellence. Next slide. Skill development activities: because without skill, getting a job is a big challenge. So, you need to have proper skill, and for that, under the Center of Excellence, we will conduct skill programs from one week to six weeks. These skills will be provided for all the students so that more job opportunities will be available for all the students in the future. These are the skill activities under the different centers of excellence. Next slide. Now, the fourth and very crucial part is research. In order to go for research, we are applying to government agencies for funding. We are looking for industry collaborations, industry partnerships, startup incubation centers, and we can say that IPR and copyright technologies will be available once this setup is in place. The research is available in all fields, including AI, embedded systems, agriculture, drone technology, automation, edge computing—all places have scope for research. Next slide. Internship opportunity: this is very important, and as per NEP guidelines, internship is compulsory for students from diploma to PhD. So, we have an internship model from three months, six months to one year, depending on their course curriculum. Next, these are the laboratories we have under the Center of Excellence, starting from AI/ML, then quantum AI, AR/VR, natural language processing, data science. These are the 12 laboratories we have, and I am proud to say that Bharat Petroleum employees are getting trained in our laboratories. These are the different laboratories, and the details will take too much time, but this is the structure of each laboratory. This is the AI/ML laboratory, next is the data science laboratory, next is the computer vision laboratory, next is the natural language processing laboratory, AI for agriculture, mining and drone technology, next is IoT, cloud and edge computing, next is quantum artificial intelligence laboratory, augmented AR/VR laboratory, HPC. I am proud that we have already started working on this, and the CAD has conducted three boot camps on different technologies: one on drone, one on AR/VR, and one on AI/ML. Three boot camps for the students have already been conducted, and more than 600 students benefited from them. Next, we have faculty development programs also conducted on these topics because these topics are very hot and new for everyone. So, we regularly conduct faculty development programs where the faculty are trained, and they can pass on this knowledge to the students. Then, sustainable cities: under that, energy, transport and waste management systems will be taken into account. This is the digital twin laboratory. Just now I told you about this particular laboratory and the trainings that will be provided to Bharat Petroleum employees. Next, the AI incubation center is also under the Center of Excellence. Next, there are a few glimpses of the infrastructure. Next slide. Now, the collaborations: we have industry collaborations, collaborations with national and international institutes, and collaborations with industry partners. Next slide. Supports during this journey of four years, and especially I was involved in the last one year on this particular center. There are many supports I have received from Professor Moin, Professor Pony from different IITs, especially thanks to Adani sir for providing all the support for the development of this particular center. Mr. Vivek Sans has given a lot of support for the development of this center, and many more names I cannot take individually. Just click on this slide to see the website, and all details are available on the website. At least you can go into any one of the tabs, like courses, you can go into the courses tab. Next, maybe the internship model. Yes. Thank you all. Thank you.
Thank you sir for the insightful and comprehensive overview of the VP SPCOE AI building. It has given us a clear understanding of the vision, the planning and the purpose behind this remarkable innovative VPCOE AI center in Baramati. Every landmark stands as a testimony to thoughtful design and meticulous planning. We are privileged to felicitate the VP SPCOE AI building architect and the core team members of Vidya Pratishtan who have played a pivotal role in shaping this remarkable building. I request honorable Shri Gautam Adani sir to felicitate Shri Sunil Patil, the principal architect engineer. I also request sir to felicitate Shri Rajendra Rao, civil engineer, Vidya Pratishtan. I request honorable Shri Adani sir to felicitate Shri Datri Shaji Pawar, electrical engineer, Vidya Pratishtan. I request sir to felicitate Shri Sachin, IT analyst, Vidya Pratishtan Engineering College. May I also request sir to felicitate Shri Mahadev Balgure, civil engineer, Vidya Pratishtan. I request sir to felicitate Satish, branch manager, and their team for their exemplary work.
It is with great pride and honor that we proceed to the unveiling of the Copyright Drive 2025 Edition 1, a thoughtful initiative aimed at creating awareness, protecting creative work, and fostering respect for intellectual ownership. May I request all the esteemed dignitaries on the dais to unveil the Copyright Drive 2025 Edition 1 and IPR repository. A gratitude to the visionary leadership of Shri Sharadchandraji Pawar. It is a remarkable achievement by the students and faculty members of VPKBIT for filing more than 300 copyrights through the recently conducted copyright drive. The participation of over 1,200 students and 100 faculty members of Vidya Pratishtan demonstrates the institute's vibrant academic culture and its dedication.
On behalf of Vidya Pratishtan's management, staff and students, we gratefully acknowledge the generous donation of the first installment of 1.5 crores for a research project to Vidya Pratishtan's College of Agriculture Biotechnology, Vidyanagri, Baramati, by Baramati Waste Management Private Limited. The total project is of 18.5 crores. I kindly request Shri Nitin Dundi Patil, founder and director of Baramati Waste Management Private Limited, to please come forward and hand over the check to honorable Shri Pawasab.
Thank you sir for your generosity.
May I now request honorable Shri Gautam Adani sir, the visionary industrialist, a transformative leader in the global business, the founder and chairman of the Adani Group, to address the audience through his inspiring words.
Namaskar. Most respected Shri Sharadchandra Pawasab, honorable Shri Ajitdada, esteemed Supriyaji, Sunetraji, distinguished dignitaries on the dais, respected faculty members, and my dear young student friends. Thank you for inviting me on this momentous occasion. This inauguration of the Vidya Pratishtan Sharadchandra Pawar Artificial Intelligence Center of Excellence is indeed a historic moment, and it is an honor to be here. This stands as a symbol of one such transformation with limitless potential, all made possible by the vision of an extraordinary leader. I call him my mentor, Shri Sharadchandra Pawar. My dear friends, I have been blessed to have known Pawasab for almost more than three decades, and what I have learned from him has no parallel. But beyond knowledge, it is his wisdom, his affection and his deep empathy that leave the strongest imprint. That is why for me, he has always been a mentor in the truest sense. Having visited Baramati dozens of times, I can say with absolute conviction that what Pawasab has achieved here goes beyond just local development by transforming agriculture, strengthening cooperatives, encouraging entrepreneurship, building educational institutions, establishing industry policy, and doing so in an unparalleled integrated manner. Pawasab has turned Baramati into a living blueprint for the whole of Bharat to learn from. But then, as I look back, Pawasab was never an exception. It was a reflection of how he thought about the direction Bharat should be taking in his role as a national leader. Pawasab has shaped our nation's agriculture policy, food security, cooperative institutions and rural economy, and did so at critical moments when the nation needed both stability and reform. Whether as a chief minister, union minister or going across party lines, Pawasab's leadership has always reflected a rare ability to balance ground realities with the national agenda. Leaders like him remind us that good politics is not about slogans. It is about understanding that a nation does not rise through isolated victories but through the steady alignment of its people, its institutions and its regions. When farmers are empowered, markets stabilize. When institutions are trusted, policies endure. When entrepreneurship is enabled, jobs are created. And when regions are strengthened, the nation stands taller. And today, as would be expected, the leader who transformed Baramati's soil now looks to yet again transform its future. While the seeds of yesterday were sown in the earth, the seeds of tomorrow will be sown in algorithms. This is what I will now talk about. My dear friends, human progress does not move in a straight line. It advances in leaps. Each leap propelled by a technology revolution that first unsettles society and then rebuilds it at a far higher level of capability. The first industrial revolution harnessed the power of steam and mechanization. The second brought electrification and mass production. The third connected the world through digital computing and the internet. Today we are living through the fourth industrial revolution, an age defined by artificial intelligence. What history teaches us is that every such transition carries two opposing forces: extraordinary opportunity and profound anxieties. Fear of displacement, fear of irrelevance, fear of giving up control to systems we do not yet fully understand. These fears are not a sign of weakness. They are deeply human. They must be recognized, understood and addressed with honesty and responsibility, because history is remarkably consistent on one fact: technologies do not destroy work. They first disrupt roles and then expand possibility. The first industrial revolution increased employment in Britain by over five times. The second created mass manufacturing, logistics and modern management jobs, absorbing millions into a new middle class. The third, the digital revolution, did not eliminate work. It accelerated innovation and produced software, services, platforms and entrepreneurship that now employ hundreds of millions globally. Looking back, each industrial revolution created far more jobs than it displaced by unlocking entirely new industries and business models that were previously unimaginable. Bharat's own experience offers clear evidence. The mobile revolution, much as everyone had feared, did not destroy jobs. Instead, it multiplied them at a massive scale. When smartphones and low-cost data reached ordinary Bharatiyas, it released an enormous surge of economic energy at the grassroots. The numbers are indisputable. Between 1991 and 2024, Bharat added over 230 million non-farm jobs, the majority created after the spread of digital infrastructure. For example, Flipkart was not built on legacy retail. It was born from a mobile-first, discovering digital commerce. Ola did not own cars. It unlocked idle assets by stitching together payments and locations. Swiggy turned neighborhood kitchens into city-scale enterprises. Paytm and PhonePe transformed every Kirana store into a financial node. None of these models were visible before mobile penetration. They did not arise from policy alone or capital alone. They emerged when capability reached the common citizen. And therefore, I can confidently say that artificial intelligence will now represent the next and far more powerful leap, because if mobile gave Bharat greater access, AI will give Bharat greater capability. Let me explain. Aadhaar and UPI enabled financial access and inclusion. Aadhaar established digital identity, and mobile connectivity allowed us to leapfrog decades of physical infrastructure. And now AI is set to become the fourth foundation, embedding capability, decision-making and productivity into every corner of the nation. Imagine that over this decade, as 1.4 billion Bharatiyas start to carry AI-powered intelligence in the palm of their hands, progress will no longer be linear. It will compound, accelerate and explode. A farmer will no longer be just a cultivator but become a one-person enterprise, using AI to read soil and crop health, anticipate hyper-local weather, optimize inputs, negotiate prices, manage logistics and hedge risk in real time. A homemaker in a tier-three town will be able to create and scale a global micro-brand using nothing but her voice, while AI designs products, ensures compliance, runs marketing, manages supply chain and handles payments seamlessly in the background. The possibilities are endless. Skill and scale, once separated by geography, will collapse into a single interface. And I can say with confidence that this is not an incremental change. This is an explosion of possibility, limited only by human ambition, because every starting point and background will matter less than our capabilities. The world of AI will ensure that where you are born will no longer limit how far you can go. What will matter is how well you learn, adapt and use intelligence, both human and artificial. This is the true meaning of the AI moment: not just a change in technology, but a civilizational lift in capability. A moment where intelligence becomes accessible to every citizen, enabling a billion Bharatiya minds to move from dependence to creation, and thereby establishing the most inclusive and accelerated growth era our nation has ever known. However, my friends, as history has often shown us, every great technology leap is also a double-edged knife. And the fourth industrial revolution driven by AI is no exception, because growth without sovereignty creates dependence, and progress without control creates risk. My dear friends, while job creation is vital, a nation of 1.4 billion people cannot afford to place its jobs, data, culture and collective intelligence at the mercy of foreign algorithms and foreign balance sheets. While AI does enhance productivity, it also concentrates economic might, informational power and decision-making authority at a scale humanity has never encountered before. The greatest risk of this AI age is not that machines will think like humans, but that humans will let machines think for them. And across the world today, we can already see this reality unfolding. The strategic competition between the United States and China has made one fact clear: AI is no longer just a technology race. It is a contest for global domination. Semiconductors have become strategic assets. Data centers have become critical infrastructure. Foundational AI models have become instruments of influence. Therefore, if Bharat does not build its own AI models, its own compute infrastructure and its own intelligence ecosystems, then our behaviors, preferences, markets and decisions will be extracted, trained upon and monetized by other nations. Technology dominance is now the key lever of influence, and in the years ahead, mastery over AI will be the greatest source of power, wealth and national freedom. This is the new battleground. Bharat must therefore approach artificial intelligence not as a convenience but as a strategic national capability, built in Bharat, governed in Bharat, and aligned with Bharat's national interest. And it is for this very reason that the Sharadchandra Pawar AI Center of Excellence arrives at a moment of immense significance, as Bharat looks to steer herself to the forefront of the global AI revolution. My dear friends, the AI future is not something that will automatically arrive in Bharat. It is something our nation must build. And I would now like to share how we at the Adani Group are building and participating in the AI revolution on both the supply side, that creates sovereign capability, and the demand side, where AI is deployed at the infrastructure level. Let me begin with the supply side and talk about the underlying dependencies. AI depends on data centers. Data centers depend on energy, and energy is the key to national sovereignty. We recognized as early as 2020 that data centers would soon become as essential to Bharat as highways, ports, airports and power plants. They would no longer be seen as just technology capabilities but would become the intelligence infrastructure needed for sovereignty. These are now the factories of intelligence that will shape productivity and security and protect our economic power. At the same time, we saw clearly that the biggest constraint to the growth of data centers would not be capital or land but energy, and more specifically, clean, reliable and affordable green energy. It was at a conference in Singapore in 2020 that I stated that the upcoming energy demand from data centers would far exceed anything the world had witnessed. For us, this was not just a market forecast. It was an opportunity as well as a call for nation building. And therefore, we made a critical choice to invest 75 billion US dollars into the energy transition years ahead of the curve to prepare for a technology revolution that we saw as inevitable. And while much of the world is constrained by high energy costs, we enter this decade with a structural advantage through the world's most integrated green energy ecosystem that we have now built. We are positioned to supply the world's least-cost green electrons. Much of it is being generated at the world's largest single-site renewable energy park in Khavda, in Gujarat's Kutch district. This park is spread over 520 square kilometers with a peak capacity of 30 gigawatts. Also, with 15 ports across Bharat's coastline, we are uniquely positioned to serve as a primary landing destination for global undersea cables. And through our national transmission networks, we can connect many of the data centers within the country, creating a digital backbone that is resilient, scalable and sovereign. This integrated vision has made us the fastest-growing data center platform in India.
Bhat with the largest order book in the country. But more importantly, it positions Bhat not merely as a consumer of artificial intelligence but as a builder, host and exporter of intelligence. Let me now speak about the demand side of AI and why it matters to you as researchers and students. The most important question in AI today is not what a model can do. Large language models have already shown that they can write, read, summarize and predict. Real transformation begins when the AI models step into the real world into airports, ports, power grids, factories, logistic corridors and cities. That is where AI stops being a tool you study and starts becoming a system that you operate. This is where the value of AI truly explodes. I call this the industrialization of AI. At the Adani group we operate at an integrated scale that very few organizations in the world do. We run the largest ports and container terminals. We operate the country's largest private power generation capacity and the largest renewable energy ecosystem. We have built the largest solar manufacturing platform, the largest copper smelter and the largest privately managed airport network within Bhat. And my young friends, why does this matter to you? Because very few places in the world would allow young engineers, researchers and students to work at the intersections of physical infrastructure, energy systems, industrial manufacturing, logistics networks and digital platforms at such a national scale. This makes our ecosystem a living laboratory for what I call industrial AI that addresses large scale real world problems. For example, how do you use LLMs to predict failures before a power grid goes down? How do you use computer vision to optimize spots where berth capacity is a constraint? How do you use AI to make airports safer, faster, and more human? How do you use AI agents to reduce energy loss, emissions, and waste? I can confidently say that in the months ahead, AI will transform how we procure, how we build, how we operate, how we maintain assets and how we serve our customers. And the people who will design these systems will not be abstract high level experts. They will mostly be students like you that are native AI citizens. And this is precisely where our partnership with the Sarat Chandra Power Center of Excellence finds its deeper meaning. So it is in this spirit that I am pleased to share that we are entering into a transformative partnership and formally signing an MOU with Vidya Pratishtan Baramati. This partnership is a commitment to build applied technological capability where AI research, engineering and execution move together in an integrated fashion. Needless to say, this partnership carries forward the legacy of power that is rooted in institution building, long-term thinking and the belief that empowering young minds is the most sustainable way to build Bhat. So my young friends, as I start to wrap up I urge you to remember: Pawarab has built you this AI institute ready to take on the world. This institute has given you the compass to show you the path, and the path that you choose will decide how Bhat will shape her future. Every era has had a unique aspect. This era of AI is demanding your capability. The capability to think independently. The capability to create with your own hands. And the capability to give India a new direction. So rise, not just to read the chapters but to become the author of Bhat's story. Rise, not just to walk the path but to build the roads for Bhat tomorrow. Rise, not just for personal success but to anchor the boldest dreams of Bhat. Rise, not just to celebrate history but to build the momentum to define Bhat. Rise, not just to sing the anthem but be the wind to carry Bhat's flag higher. This is the moment. This is the opportunity and this moment belongs to you. Jai Maharashtra, Jai Hind.
