Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala Cabinet, chaired by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, on Friday approved the state’s Information Technology Policy 2026, laying out an ambitious roadmap to position Kerala as a leading knowledge and innovation hub in India over the next five years.
At the centre of the policy is a target to secure at least 10 per cent of India’s total IT export share and generate a minimum of five lakh new jobs across the IT sector and allied industries, according to official sources.
The government also aims to significantly expand IT infrastructure capacity, with a focus on tripling existing capacity through private sector participation and decentralised growth across emerging urban and semi-urban centres, while fostering an intellectual property-driven knowledge industry ecosystem.
The policy places strong emphasis on emerging and high-technology sectors such as space, aerospace, defence, electronics, Artificial Intelligence (AI), quantum computing, and genomics, with the objective of enabling Kerala to capture a 5–10 per cent share of India’s economic activity in these advanced technology domains.
The number of startups in the state is proposed to be scaled up substantially, with the government targeting the creation and support of as many as 20,000 startups as part of its broader innovation and entrepreneurship push.
Universal digital access has been identified as another key pillar of the policy, with plans to ensure 100 per cent household internet connectivity through expanded fibre-optic infrastructure across the state.
To streamline governance and improve citizen services, a unified enterprise architecture will be developed to provide a single user interface for accessing all citizen-centric government services, supported by predictive and prescriptive governance models using advanced data analytics.
In addition, more e-governance applications will be migrated to cloud-based platforms, supported by a comprehensive framework to ensure responsible data usage, data security, and privacy protection.
The policy also proposes the creation of state-controlled data exchanges aimed at enabling data-driven solution providers and companies, while mandating the adoption of open-source technologies for government-funded software projects and encouraging community-led open hardware and software innovation initiatives.
Centres of Excellence in key emerging areas such as Artificial Intelligence, blockchain, data analytics, and bioinformatics will be established to strengthen research, talent development, and innovation capabilities, while the government also plans to introduce a comprehensive cyber security law to safeguard digital infrastructure and user data.
To accelerate sectoral expansion, the government will introduce measures such as land pooling for the development of new IT parks, creation of plug-and-play workspaces in emerging technology clusters, incentives to attract data centre investments, simplified labour regulations, and the establishment of a critical infrastructure fund to enhance disaster resilience.
Specialised technology missions, including the Kerala Electronics & Semiconductor Mission (KESM), Kerala AI Mission, and Kerala Future Tech Mission (KFTM), will be launched to drive focused growth in strategic sectors. In addition, a Digital Transformation Mission will be rolled out to provide shared digital infrastructure and subsidised access to cloud computing and Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) resources for startups, enterprises, and research institutions.
The draft version of the IT Policy 2026 had earlier been placed in the public domain for stakeholder consultation before receiving formal approval from the state Cabinet.
(IANS)
