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US chipmaker AMD has agreed to partner with VLSI Academy, proposed to be set up by the government of Telangana. Telangana's Information Technology and Electronics Minister K.T. Rama Rao, who is currently on a visit to the United States, met AMD officials at the company's headquarters in Sunnyvale, California. The delegation led by the minister held a meeting with AMD's Chief Technology Officer Mark Papermaster and Senior Vice President Ruth Cotter, a statement from the state government said on Friday.

As AMD plans to focus on graphics, virtual reality, gaming and manufacturing, the IT minister briefed the officials about the state's initiatives in these sectors. He invited the company to partner with IMAGE, the gaming and animating city being developed by the state government here and explained why Hyderabad is an ideal destination for gaming and animation. He also urged the chipmaker to partner with the premier academic institutions in Telangana like International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Hyderabad and Bits Pilani for research.

Explaining the incentives being offered by the state for electronics manufacturing, Rao urged the AMD to manufacture their products in Telangana. The AMD executives briefed the delegation about the existing chip design facilities in Hyderabad. They said their latest chip Zen was also designed in the Hyderabad facility. They hoped that more such innovations would come out of the centre. The AMD officials pointed out that AMD with its chip technology designed graphics for Telugu blockbuster "Bahubali". They said they were ready to design graphics for more movies in Telugu and other languages.

Earlier, Rama Rao, who is son of Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, met California Governor Edmund Jerry Brown. The government of Telangana and California State entered into a memorandum of understanding for mutual cooperation in the field of non-conventional sources of energy. Rama Rao elaborated on the new industrial policy ATSiPASS and also on information and communication technology policy of Telangana. The minister also met with cloud computing company Salesforce's team led by Srinivas Tallapragada at its head office in San Francisco and explained to them the opportunities Telangana presents for the IT companies.

In the meeting with Reid Hoffman, co-founder and Executive Chairman of LinkedIn, the minister sought to know the professional social networking site's expansion plans in India and extended invitation to the company representatives to visit Telangana. Reid accepted the invitation and said that his team would visit Hyderabad next year.

IANS