The premier engineering colleges, the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), from across the country are responding to the rising demand for qualified artificial intelligence (AI) and data science (DS) professionals by setting up schools and research centres. 

Just last week, IIT-Powai announced the set-up of a "Technocraft Centre for Applied Artificial Intelligence’ (TCA2I)" to nourish and grow collaborations between industry and academia in applied AI. Only the previous year, IIT-Powai had set-up the Centre for Machine Intelligence and Data Science (C-MInDS) to help create AI and DS talents by encouraging research, teaching, and collaboration with industry/government. Previously, AI and DS were purely subjects for engineers from the Computer Science stream. However, as the demand for these capabilities grows regardless of the industry, institutes see an opportunity to train all engineering students in these technologies. 

The C-MInDs offers a B.Tech minor in AI and a dual-degree in M.Tech. “BTech students from any stream can complete five additional courses in AI and ML-related subjects and they will be awarded a minor degree in machine intelligence and data sciences. The courses cut across all streams. The goal is to develop manpower, who are experts in their own domains, but also have expertise in AI and ML,” said Manjesh Hanawal, assistant professor, Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, IIT-Bombay, who is an associated faculty at both CMInDs and TCA2I. So far, around 100 students have registered for the BTech Minor course.

IIT-Madras too have established the Robert Bosch Centre for Data Science and AI (RBCDSAI) in 2017, while IIT-Delhi set up a School of Artificial Intelligence (ScAI) in September 2020. The ScAI has received more than 160 applications for its PhD programmes in AI. “From the next semester, we plan to start an MTech programme with an intake of 40. We have identified five core areas where we have our strength in AI applications — healthcare, material sciences, industry 4.0, robotics and multilingual natural language processing. ScAI aims to bring AI researchers across all departments together. It will facilitate collaborations to foster research in AI,” said Mausam, professor and founding head of ScAI. CMInDS, too, is likely to start regular MTech and PhD programmes in AI from the next semester.

“TCA2I focuses on research across domains. We are looking at interdisciplinary research in the application of AI in the supply chain, logistics, transportation, cybersecurity, among others,” said Hanawal.

“Today, many donors are also realising that there is a huge thrust on making our workforce ready to adapt to AI as well as bring out high-quality research work in AI,” said Hanawal. TCA2I was set-up via donations worth ₹15 crores spread over three years from alumni members.

"Through these centres, we have scope to build out new use cases where both the academia and the organisations can get an edge in these areas. For the institutions, these centres offer an opportunity to focus more on research,” said Gupta, while mentioning that NASSCOM was creating and curating courses in emerging technologies in partnership with various institutions and making the courses accessible.