On 23 December, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, during nearly an hour-and-a-half-long interaction with students, announced a reward of ₹100 crore for a Nobel laureate in quantum computing, and also in a PowerPoint presentation pitched the state’s emerging capital Amaravati as one of the five future “quantum valley” hubs globally. The Nobel Prize, considered one of the highest recognition of scientific achievement, is awarded every year in six categories. The award ceremony is held on 10 December, which marks the death date of Swedish scientist and inventor Alfred Nobel, as stipulated in Nobel’s will.
Mr Naidu’s announcement sits at the intersection of educational investment, especially research funding, laboratories and scientific infrastructure, and technology-led industrial transformation on which the state government is betting to shape Amaravati’s future.
However, academics say that although the move is ambitious, the current budgetary allocation raises questions about the scale of public investment required to sustain such ambitions. The announcement also reflects Mr Naidu’s earlier approach of including development goals in long-term vision documents, revealing how this latest push connects the Vision 2020 unveiled in the 1990s with the newly unveiled Vision 2047, which key promises were achieved, which were not, and what now awaits the state by 2047.
Research Capacity Constraints
A slide in the presentation highlighted that India’s relatively modest public investment in national quantum initiatives through the National Quantum Mission (2023-2031) is $0.735 billion compared to China’s $15.3 billion. In the Andhra Pradesh Budget for 2025-26, the state has allocated ₹31,800 crore for school education, ₹2,500 crore for higher education and ₹1,200 crore for skill development and training. Andhra Pradesh has earmarked 12.1% of its total expenditure for education in 2025-26, according to an analysis by PRS Legislative Research. This is lower than the average education allocation of 15% by states in 2024-25, including Union Territories like Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir and Puducherry.
Speaking on this, Dinesh Shukla, a senior scientist at the UGC-DAE Consortium for Scientific Research (CSR) specializing in quantum materials, said that offering large cash prizes for Nobel laureates is ambitious, but without significant improvements in India’s research infrastructure and scientific ecosystem, such goals may remain a “daydream”. He said that Nobel Prizes are given for real successes. He said that research in quantum computing requires highly specialized infrastructure which is currently rare or unavailable in India. It includes ultra-high-precision optics systems, millikelvin temperature facilities, high-end magnetometers, nanoscale device fabrication facilities and highly precise electronics. “Apart from these laboratory-scale facilities, India also lacks very important “front-end”, large-scale radiation-based facilities like X-ray lasers.”
A primary concern is India’s heavy dependence on imported scientific equipment even for basic research. He pointed out that something as fundamental as analyzing the crystal structure of a material requires X-ray diffractometers, yet these are not manufactured domestically. To bridge this gap, prioritizing the development of these infrastructure needs should be a top priority for India.
Without improving infrastructure for fundamental research, the country cannot compete effectively with those at the forefront of global science. Beyond physical equipment, he also highlighted systemic issues that hinder a strong research ecosystem in India. Inequitable distribution and inconsistent funding cycles are slowing progress. A serious concern he raised is the lack of high-quality, expert referees within funding agencies to evaluate and support high-potential research.
Another professor, formerly at Andhra University, a state public institution, who teaches quantum science and now works in a state-funded degree college, said on condition of anonymity that the physics department at his former university has only three to four professors teaching around 200 students. Andhra University now offers “India’s first” Bachelor in Technology (Quantum Computing) by the year 2025-2026.
Closely examining the Right to Information (RTI) response, filed for a The Hindu The report shows that by June 2025, at least 20 courses in arts, science, engineering, law and technology colleges had no full-time faculty and were being run entirely by contract teachers. This indicates that the university is functioning with only a third of the 718 sanctioned teaching posts filled by regular faculty, including about 14% through contractual appointments, while about 60% of the posts are vacant.
However, he said he expects at least some research activities to begin as the state begins to promote quantum science. He said that several research proposals submitted by his colleagues are awaiting approval under the National Quantum Mission and Andhra Pradesh Quantum Computing Policy (2025-2030). As per Andhra Pradesh Quantum Computing Policy, grants for academic projects are limited to ₹30 lakh per project. According to the PowerPoint presentation made by Mr Naidu, there are 134 proposals for teaching laboratories and 84 proposals for algorithm-based research.
From Vision 2020 to Vision 2047
The current pressure is an echo of the first phase of Mr Naidu’s rule. In 1999, working with McKinsey & Company, Shri Naidu, the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, released the vision document Andhra Pradesh Vision 2020. The 346-page document, spanning 29 chapters covering areas ranging from information technology to education, placed education early on its agenda, with the second chapter titled “Agenda for Education”.
One of the central goals of the document was to increase the state’s literacy rate from 44% in 1991 to more than 95%. After more than two decades, Andhra Pradesh’s literacy rate stands at 72.60%, according to the Periodic Labor Force Survey (PLFS) 2023-24 for the population aged seven years and above. This places Andhra Pradesh last among 36 states and union territories.
Furthermore, the Vision 2020 document argued that such outcomes would require increased public spending on education, recommending that the allocation increase to between 17% and 20% of the budget. However, according to PRS Legislative Research, the 2025-26 Andhra Pradesh budget allocates 12.1% of total expenditure to education.
Also, the policy framework emphasized increasing access to higher education through private participation. As National Institute of Education and Planning (NIEPA) academic A. Mathew writes in Higher Education Policy in Andhra Pradesh, “The number of professional colleges expanded rapidly during Mr. Naidu’s tenure. Between 1995 and 2004, when he left office, engineering colleges increased from 35 to 236, MBA colleges increased from 57 to 207 and MCA colleges increased from 44 to 227, with intake capacity increasing manifold, largely driven by state policies. Colleges It is relatively easy to set up. This expansion continued in subsequent years, especially after the introduction of the fee reimbursement scheme by the then Congress government in 2008.”
Following the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh in 2014 and Hyderabad being allocated to Telangana under the Andhra Pradesh Reorganization Act, 2014, Mr Naidu returned to power between 2014 and 2019 after nearly a decade in opposition, and introduced Amaravati as the new capital. He lost the 2019 election but returned to office again in 2024. With the Vision 2020 deadline passed and the state once again attempting to build a new capital, Mr Naidu prepared a new vision document titled Swarna Andhra 2047 in November 2024. The 232-page document, spread across 14 chapters, places skills and employment-focused education as a central pillar, with education forming the fourth chapter of the report.
It proposes to increase the share of the population aged 15-59 with formal vocational or technical training from about 1% to near universal coverage and to increase the adoption rate of vocational training among large and medium industries from 3-5% to 95%. It also targets 100% literacy for people aged seven and above, and aims to increase the School Education Quality Index (SEQI) score from 50 to 100.
Beyond school education, the document sets out broader developmental goals, including the creation of three “knowledge cities” in Amaravati, Visakhapatnam and Tirupati, the establishment of an AI University and a National Center for Artificial Intelligence, the establishment of three to five world-class multidisciplinary education and research universities, and a commitment to zero poverty as well as an aspiration to produce two Nobel Prize-winning researchers from Andhra Pradesh.
While some of the education-related goals outlined by Mr Naidu in the Vision 2020 document have not materialized and others have, whether this latest vision can be translated into reality rather than remaining aspirational remains to be seen.
(It is written by Bhaskar Basava, a Hyderabad-based freelance journalist who primarily covers politics, human rights and environmental issues from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. He is now expanding his work to include education in all states.)
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