The Karnataka government on Wednesday announced it will establish a Centre of Excellence for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (CoE-DS&AI), with Nasscom as the programme and implementation partner. The CoE, being set up at a cost of Rs 40 crore, is said to be first-of-its-kind port based on PPP model, and will accelerate the ecosystem in Karnataka. It will also provide the impetus for development of data science and artificial intelligence across the country. "The state government will further support the initiative with significant share of investment required for initial five years and non sensitive data which can augment innovation and research in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence across the country," the IT & BT department said in a statement. IT and tourism minister Priyank Kharge said the CoE will enable global corpora tes who plan to set up their global analytics practice in Karnataka and create jobs for 35,000 data science and artificial intelligence professionals over the next five years.