The premier technical college, the Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati (IIT-G) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Mehta Family Foundation, the USA on April 28, Wednesday, to set up a Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (AI) focused school. The school will impart education at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. 

T G Sitharam, the Director of IIT-G virtually signed the MoU with the MFF in the presence of Dr Rajiv Modi, the director of the IIT-G Board of Governors and Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India, Prof Krishnaswamy Vijaraghavan. "I take this opportunity to thank Mehta Family Foundation for its enormous support in establishing this school which will offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, B Tech in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence from this academic year," T G Sitharam said. The school will be ready to accept its first batch of B Tech students in the academic year of 2021-22 through JEE exams. 

IIT-G is the latest in line with other IITs in offering courses in AI and other emerging technologies as there has been a rise in the field. Vijayraghavan said, that with the available expertise, IIT-G will take up this school as a foundation to set up data collection sites in the eastern region of the country for various sectors such as healthcare, climate, transportation, security and other areas and convert the huge data into effective knowledge and understanding to serve the society in a better way.