Bhaskar Katamneni, the secretary to the government of Andhra Pradesh, has said that state investment should have a healthy mix of manufacturing, AI and robotics.
"We should not think about AI for the sake of AI," Katamneni said at a panel by NDTV Profit on the Andhra Pradesh government's economic strategy on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum's annual 2026 meeting.
"Today, we can use AI to predict which kids are not coming back to school next year," the Andhra Pradesh secretary said.
The state asks school authorities to act based on the parameters they examine to predict which children may not return to education, as per Katamneni. "AI has a lot of potential to change lives. The applications are endless," he said.
He also spoke of how the state is utilising its 1,000 km of coastline for economic purposes, stating this gives Andhra Pradesh a geographic advantage. Katamneni said the state looks towards countries that stand on the coast such as Singapore, Australia and Japan.
He mentioned its nine executive ports functional and five ports getting executed and operational in the next three years. And said that the state wants to have maritime connections with the entire southeast Asia. He also noted that it has a young large working population with low dependency unlike countries like Japan which are particularly invested in STEM education.
"The West coast in Asia is not always stable, we have stable geopolitics, Meta is deciding on a cable landing in Vizag. Come to Andhra Pradesh and serve the entirety of East Asia," Katamneni said.
He also spoke about the state's philosophy on renewable energy.
"Two aspects of renewable energy, one is environmental and the other is economic advantage, in the long-term running costs would be cheaper, labour costs are low but energy costs also have to come down. In the last three months, our government was able to bring down energy costs. That's the advantage we have," he said.
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