IIT Hyderabad Introduces India’s First B.Tech. in Artificial Intelligence Programme

Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Hyderabad is introducing a new B. Tech. course in Artificial Intelligence that will be available to the students beginning the coming academic year (2019-2020). It is the first such full-fledged B. Tech. programme to be offered by an Indian university. Even internationally, only select institutions like Carnegie Mellon University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are currently offering similar courses, claimed IIT Hyderabad in a press release.

According to a report in NDTV, the B.Tech. in Artificial Intelligence course will intake 20 students each year, who will be selected through the JEE Advanced entrance examination that the students across the country take every year to get admission in the graduate courses at the IITs.

Commenting on the new course, Prof U.B. Desai, Director, IIT Hyderabad, said, “The basic aim is to create a complete ecosystem for Artificial Intelligence Academics and Research at IIT Hyderabad. This involves B.Tech., M.Tech. and different Minor Programs in AI. Moreover, the R&D will be strongly entwined with academics.”

The B.Tech. in Artificial Intelligence course will include study of algorithms, signal processing, robotics and mathematical foundations. It will also focus on application verticals such as healthcare, agriculture, smart mobility, and more. IIT Hyderabad notes that ethical impact of AI and related technologies on areas such as privacy, bias, and related issues will also taught to the students.

The institute hopes that the new programme will allow the students to become leaders in the field and help meet the growing demand for artificial intelligence and machine learning experts in the industry.

"AI solutions are particularly promising for India (given the availability of a large corpus of data) where it can have a major positive impact on several critical domains such as healthcare, crop and soil management, weather prediction, surveillance and security, and defence. However, the demand for professionals trained in this area far exceeds the current supply. The BTech program in AI is a step in the direction of addressing this highly skewed demand-supply scenario," said Dr. Sumohana Channappayya, Dean (Research and Development).

The IIT Hyderabad already offers a M.Tech. course in Machine Learning.