Chief Minister M.K. Stalin will lay the foundation stone for the Knowledge City in Tiruvallur district on Thursday (January 29).
The Knowledge City has been conceived as a space to promote innovation, knowledge, and research by bringing together universities, research labs, and research-oriented industries in a collaborative ecosystem, said Sandeep Nanduri, Managing Director, Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation (TIDCO), the nodal agency for the project.
In the first phase, TIDCO plans to build classrooms, student housing, stadiums, sports facilities, and commercial facilities on 870 acres of land. The anchor project of the Knowledge City would be a one-lakh-square-feet Knowledge Tower where plug-and-play facilities would be built to enable foreign universities to function out of. “We already have bookings for almost all the facilities,” Mr. Nanduri added.
The State is all set to sign Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) with eight international universities that have expressed interest in setting up a campus in the State. They will be part of the ambitious Tamil Nadu Knowledge City project that is proposed to be built in Tiruvallur district near Chennai.
The MoUs with universities from the U.S., Europe, and Australia will be signed in the backdrop of the two-day India Global Education Summit 2026, jointly organised by the Tamil Nadu Government and National Indian Students and Alumni Union (NISAU), U.K., which began on Wednesday.
Published – January 29, 2026 12:35 am IST


