Telangana views AI safety as an enabler of innovation: Sridhar Babu

Hyderabad: While cautioning against unchecked deployment of Artificial Intelligence without regulatory safeguards, IT and industries minister D Sridhar Babu on Thursday said Telangana views AI safety as an enabler of innovation.Pointing out that the Global South countries are not waiting for others to draft AI safety standards, he said Telangana is instead formulating them in real time for its 40 million people.Addressing representatives from global strategic advisory firms, including Digital Governance Advisory and Albright Stonebridge Group, along with experts from AI Safety Connect at the India AI Impact Summit 2026, which is underway in Delhi, Sridhar Babu said a single failure could destroy public trust built over decades.Quoting renowned investor Warren Buffett, he said, "It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it," adding that AI is at a similar inflection point.Comparing today's AI moment to early aviation, he pointed out that safety standards such as seat belts and radar did not slow the sector but helped it scale up.Pointing out that technology professionals drive more than half of Hyderabad's $80 billion economy, he cited the example of Shenzhen in China, which was a fishing village in the 1980s and now grew into a $500 billion powerhouse, to explain that Telangana today is poised at a similar transformational moment, but with technology as its engine instead of manufacturing.Sridhar Babu said Telangana is aiming to become a global AI hub, targeting a $1 trillion economy by 2035 and $3 trillion by 2047, by taking AI to the grassroots with sustainability at the core of its strategy. This includes an AI City spread over 765 sq km and Bharat Future City, which will be India's first net zero city.He said the state already launched a sovereign AI hub, AIKAM, and built the Telangana Data Exchange (TGDeX), touted as the world's first sovereign open data pipeline publishing 1,084 datasets (500 GB) from 28 departments.Currently, over 950 experts and startups are active on the platform, and 360 AI models are using this data. An Integrated Digital Services Platform is expected to deliver 300 services to 40 million citizens by 2027, alongside $15 billion in future-ready investments.