In 1980, Sidhu graduated from Osmania University, Hyderabad, earning a bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering. He then moved to the United States and attended Oklahoma State University, earning a master of science degree in chemical engineering in 1982. Sidhu also did graduate work in systems and control engineering at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.
Sidhu founded and served as chairman of i2 Technologies, which specializes in supply chain management. i2 began in Sidhu's apartment in 1988 after he left his role as an engineer in the artificial intelligence lab at Texas Instruments where he was researching the feasibility and commercial applicability of a systematic approach to solving complex linear programming models. He was joined by Ken Sharma, formerly of the Goldratt Institute, with whom he worked at Texas Instruments. Their initial product was known as the Factory Planner.
i2 Technologies went public in 1996, and at his peak Sidhu's personal stake in i2 hit a high of $6.5 billion; Forbes listed him as the 109th richest person in the world in 2001.[2] At that point, he was considered the richest person of Indian origin in the world. In 2000, Sidhu was awarded the Non-Resident Indian of the Year by the Indian government.
