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Published on
May 5, 2025
5 min read
Adobe, Google, Meta, NVIDIA, and Microsoft Partner with IICT to Advance AVGC-XR Education in India
At the WAVES Summit 2025, global tech leaders like Adobe, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and NVIDIA participated in a major announcement. They signed agreements with the Indian Institute of Creative Technology (IICT) to enhance AVGC-XR education in India.
The IICT, modeled after IITs and located in Mumbai’s Film City, will focus on Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming, Comics, and Extended Reality (AVGC-XR). According to a report by The Week, the partnerships seek to enhance creative technologies education by providing curriculum support, internship programs, and employment opportunities.
Indian Institute of Creative Technology (IICT)
One of the biggest highlights at WAVES 2025 was the launch of the IICT. This new institute shows a strong commitment to nurturing creative talent in India. It also aims to bring new ideas and advanced technology into the creative industry on a large scale. Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw stated, “We will be following the same template that we have created for the IITs and IIMs… to make it into a world-class institution.”
The first campus of IICT is within the NFDC Building on Pedder Road in Mumbai. It offers facilities such as animation labs, virtual production systems, XR studios, and e-sports zones. The facility aims to build a shared environment between students, professionals, and startups to experiment and create new storytelling approaches together. Moreover, IICT will provide enrollment for courses in partnership with international universities and platforms to deliver global-standard education.
The institute has already received strategic support from global tech leaders such as NVIDIA, Google, Microsoft, Meta, Adobe, and Apple. The partnerships will concentrate on building training programs as well as creator tool development, maintaining mentorship, and internship programs. The government intends to establish numerous IICT regional centers throughout India. These regional centers aim to provide global-standard creative education across India and support emerging talent in non-metropolitan areas.
WAVES Bazaar and WAVEX
The partnership between IICT and international tech corporations represented India’s comprehensive initiative to develop its creative economy, which happened at WAVES 2025. The WAVES Bazaar established itself as a high-energy marketplace that brought together creators, producers, platforms, and distributors from across the globe. Within three short days, the Bazaar created structured B2B transactions totaling ₹971 crore and secured ₹1,328 crore worth of business transactions altogether.
India’s creative economy will also benefit from renowned educational institutions and technological infrastructure like IICT. Noteworthy deals included Indo-UK and Indo-Russian co-productions, as well as a landmark agreement between Prime Video and Korean content giant CJ ENM for global content distribution. IICT will foster cultural exchange between Indian and global creative communities, opening new market opportunities for creators across regions and sectors.
The Government of Maharashtra also offered strong support during the summit. It helped sign Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) worth ₹8,000 crore with educational institutions and private companies, further boosting the ecosystem that IICT is building.
Parallelly, the WAVEX Accelerator gave a strong push to emerging talent. From more than 1,000 startup applications, 30 high-potential ventures in media tech were chosen to pitch their ideas to leading investors. These discussions led to investment interest worth ₹50 crore. Startups that participated in WAVEX demonstrated a connection with IICT’s key strategic areas that included animation, gaming, AI-driven production, immersive storytelling, and Web3 technologies.
The government introduced an angel investor network to support the growth of such ventures over an extended period. The WAVEX startup launchpad serves the AVGC-XR and media-tech industry each year while partnering with IICT initiatives, with support from leading global tech companies. WAVES 2025 established itself as more than a summit by creating a road map for India’s creative technology landscape development for the future.
