A recent social media post by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has kicked up a new controversy. The CM, in his post on X (formerly Twitter), announced a Rs 25,000 crore Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Puch AI, a one-year-old Bengaluru-based AI startup. As stated, the deal aims to transform Uttar Pradesh into an AI-centric destination through AI Parks, massive data centre infrastructure, an “AI Commons” platform for citizens, and a dedicated AI University.
However, the post caught attention as many industry experts and his followers raised concerns about the chosen startup for the partnership – Puch AI. The AI startup is less than a year old (founded in June 2025) and there is no official listing of its annual revenue anywhere, even though media reports cite an annual revenue of Rs 42.9 lakh. This makes many wonder whether such a young startup can deliver on an MoU of this scale. Many were even curious about the CEO of the startup, Siddharth Bhatia, thus seeking details on his background.
Who is Siddharth Bhatia? Meet the CEO and founder of Puch AI
Siddharth Bhatia is a technologist with an academic and research pedigree, who changed his career direction to entrepreneurship to build AI “for billions.” Being a BITS Pilani alumnus, he earned a PhD in Computer Science from the National University of Singapore (NUS) under advisor Bryan Hooi.
His doctoral research focused on streaming anomaly detection, yielding multiple high-impact papers in global conferences such as AAAI, WWW, KDD, and NeurIPS. Bhatia also received the President’s Graduate Fellowship, multiple Research Achievement Awards at NUS, and was recognised as a Young Researcher by the ACM Heidelberg Laureate Forum. During his PhD, Bhatia also interned at Google Research and Amazon Web Services.
Prior to establishing Puch AI, Bhatia founded TurboML as a platform for building continual, adaptive, and personalised AI systems.
He co-founded Puch AI in June 2025 alongside Arjit Jain (an IIT Bombay alumnus). The company states that its mission is to make AI accessible to every Indian, especially first-time users, through voice-first, multilingual (Indic languages with regional accents) tools that require no new apps or technical expertise. Puch AI operates primarily via WhatsApp, offering practical use cases in education, healthcare, and creative fields.
Bhatia has also stood publicly as a vocal advocate for sovereign and inclusive AI – the top goals of the recently organised India AI Impact Summit 2026. He has met Union Ministers Rajnath Singh and Piyush Goyal to discuss AI adoption, data security, and vernacular solutions.
Bhatia also has his share of controversial social media posts, wherein he once made a viral offer of a $50 billion to acquire Perplexity AI, which was in the rumours to acquire Google Chrome in mid-2025 amidst the controversy brewing between Google and the US court.
Puch AI and the Rs 25,000 crore MoU
According to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s official post on X, the MoU with Puch AI will deliver:
– AI Parks powered by large-scale data centres to enable enterprises and startups.
– AI Commons, which will be a citizen-centric platform for governance, public services, and everyday AI applications.
– An AI University focused on upskilling youth and working professionals.
In the post, CM Adityanath described it as a step to “strengthen governance, drive innovation, and create future-ready opportunities for our youth.”
However, Puch AI’s reported revenue of under Rs 42.9 lakh and its status as a startup barely a year old have led to the rise of widespread criticism online. Community notes on the CM’s post and numerous replies highlighted the scale mismatch, with some users calling the MoU unrealistic, while others questioned Puch AI’s capacity to execute such large-scale projects involving data centres and university-level infrastructure. Here are some posts that questioned the scale mismatch.
UP CM responds after social media raises concerns
In an update on his earlier post, CM Yogi Aditynath shared a clarification on the matter, stating that the Rs 25,000 crore Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between Invest UP and Puch AI is “merely a preliminary, non-binding step” intended to explore potential in the artificial intelligence sector.
He emphasises that any further progress is strictly contingent upon rigorous due diligence, project audits, and formal approvals. The CM also clarified that any investor who fails to meet these evaluation criteria will have their MoU automatically terminated.