NIT Raipur Opens ₹20 Crore IndiaAI Centre for Mining, Health AI

NIT Raipur opens the ₹20 crore MeitY IndiaAI Chhattisgarh AI Centre of Excellence, with labs, HPC and 12 startups for mining, steel and health AI.

The National Institute of Technology (NIT) Raipur opened the MeitY IndiaAI Chhattisgarh Centre of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence (AI-CoE) on 3 November 2026, alongside its 17th convocation. Backed by a ₹20 crore project outlay under the IndiaAI Mission, the centre will build AI solutions for mining, steel and healthcare, according to the institute.

What the NIT Raipur IndiaAI centre will do

The AI-CoE is run by the NIT Raipur Foundation for Innovation & Entrepreneurship (NITRRFIE), the institute’s incubator. It is supported by the IndiaAI Mission of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), NIT Raipur and the Government of Chhattisgarh. Its brief covers AI research, startup incubation, workforce training and helping industry adopt AI, with three priority domains:

Mining and minerals
Steel and industries
Healthcare and multidisciplinary AI

The model is similar to the ₹20 crore IndiaAI centre of excellence at AKTU in Lucknow, which also pairs a state university system with the national AI mission.

Labs, computing and the first startup batch

According to posts by the IndiaAI Mission, the centre sits on the sixth floor of NIT Raipur’s new Academic Annexe-I building. It houses three domain labs matching its priority sectors and high-performance computing (HPC) capacity for training and testing larger AI models.

The AI-CoE has already selected 12 startups for its first incubation batch, working on solutions for healthcare, mining and steel. On the health side, NITRRFIE has signed a five-year collaboration with AIIMS Raipur, under which the hospital will share clinical problem statements in areas such as AI-based diagnostics, clinical decision support and hospital operations.

Seven new centres and a 1,364-strong graduating class

Union Minister of Coal and Mines G. Kishan Reddy was the chief guest, with Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai as guest of honour. Raipur MP Brijmohan Agrawal and Dr N. Kalaiselvi, Director General of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), were special guests. The ceremony was chaired by Dr Suresh Haware, Chairman of the NIT Raipur Board of Governors, with Director Prof. N.V. Ramana Rao.

The AI-CoE is one of seven centres opened on the day. The others cover critical minerals, computational mechanics, space and interplanetary exploration, rural and tribal health innovation, aerospace and autonomous technologies, and nanoscience and sustainable energy. At the convocation, 1,364 students of the 2025-26 session were to receive degrees, with 51 medals.

Why it matters for AI in higher education

Campus AI centres are spreading fast, from NIIT University’s AI and analytics CoE with Fractal to Gujarat’s green skills and applied AI centre at LD College of Engineering. NIT Raipur’s version stands out for tying research to Chhattisgarh’s core industries, mining and steel, so students and startups work on problems local employers actually have.

It also builds on the institute’s push into emerging tech, including its national training programme on applied mathematics and quantum cryptography earlier this year.