KEONICS chairman Sharath Bache Gowda
| Photo Credit: File Photo
Karnataka State Electronics Development Corporation Limited (KEONICS), a State-owned enterprise that promotes electronics and IT, on Friday announced that it was all set for the State-wide rollout and deployment of its recently designed and developed “KEO PC.”
KEO is an open-source, low-cost, AI-ready, plug-and-play mass personal computing system built by KEONICs to make technology accessible and affordable to schools, students, households and small and micro enterprises across rural Karnataka.
In about a week
Sharath Bache Gowda, Chairman, KEONICS, told The Hindu, “We are all set for the State-wide rollout of KEO PCs, may be in a week’s time. Then we will straight away go for deployments and plans are ready.’’
To start with, KEONICS would be deploying KEO PCs across 1,500 Arivu Kendras (Gram Panchayat knowledge centers and village libraries). “We will pick each district in each assembly constituency and the best performing Arivu Kendras in the region. Each constituency will get at least four to five PCs.”
According to Mr. Bache Gowda, KEONICS was also looking at deploying 1000 units of KEO PCs across 200 constituencies. “In each district, we are picking up a government residential school, and each school will see five or six deployments. We are choosing suitable locations for deployments so that more number students, teachers, common citizens and small enterprises in rural villages will be able to use these systems conveniently and frequently,’’ he added.
A consignment of another 1,000 units of KEO PCs would go to government schools in the educationally backward Kalyana Karnataka region. Shikshana, an NGO, which currently works with government schools and Arivu Kendra in rural Karnataka, has been chosen as the deployment partner of KEONICS.
May cost more
Mr. Bache Gowda said the PCs produced in the first batch would be sold at the earlier committed price of ₹18,999 per unit. However, the production of next batch of KEO PCs would become costlier as getting the memory was going to be trickier and more expensive.
Memory prices for both RAM and SSDs have soared primarily because of the massive AI boom, which has forced manufacturers to prioritise hyper-expensive AI chips over everyday consumer computer parts. Global computer memory prices started noticeably soaring in mid to late 2025, accelerating drastically into an intense market surge by the fourth quarter of 2025 and the first quarter of 2026.
“Fortunately, we placed our orders for memory to build our PC in last November. But the upcoming batches of KEO PCs will costlier by at least by 20% to 30%. They may be priced at around ₹25,000 per unit,’’ he explained.
Published – July 24, 2026 11:49 pm IST
