The Maharashtra Cabinet on April 29, 2026, approved the Maharashtra AI Policy 2026, targeting investments of over ₹10,000 crore and the creation of more than 1.5 lakh AI-related jobs in the state by 2031. The decision was taken at a Cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis in Mumbai.
The policy is structured around seven pillars and is positioned, in line with the India AI Mission, to make Maharashtra the national hub for ethical and inclusive AI development. It proposes the establishment of six AI Centres of Excellence and five AI Innovation Cities across the state to balance opportunities across regions, alongside a state-wide compute capacity of at least 2,000 GPUs to be made accessible to government departments under a Compute-as-a-Service model.
On the workforce side, the policy lays out a skill-development plan via the Maharashtra Centre for Advanced AI Training (MCAT), an industry-academia initiative expected to train around two lakh youth and professionals in AI-related skills.
A dedicated ₹500 crore AI Startup Venture Fund will be set up with equal contributions from the government and the private sector, with a stated ambition of producing at least one AI unicorn from Maharashtra. Twelve AI incubators will be established across the state, offering financial assistance of up to ₹1 crore per startup, with additional incentives for women-led enterprises.
Around 5,000 Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) will be eligible for a 20% subsidy on AI implementation costs, in a move aimed at pulling smaller players into the AI ecosystem rather than concentrating gains at the enterprise tier.
The Cabinet nod follows CM Fadnavis’s two-day-earlier launch of the MahaChatur AI Chatbot, a unified platform aimed at bridging education and employment by combining skill development, job opportunities, and entrepreneurial guidance for the state’s youth. Speaking at the launch, Fadnavis pointed to India’s “demographic advantage”, noting that 65% of the population is under 35.
