IIT Hyderabad to introduce B.Tech program in Artificial Intelligence

Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Hyderabad is introducing a full-fledged B.Tech program in Artificial Intelligence (AI), beginning from the upcoming Academic Year (2019-2020). It is the first Indian institute to provide such a full-fledged B.Tech program in AI.

The course will have an intake of about 20 students, who can take the program through the JEE Advanced. The program is aimed at enabling students to become leaders in the industry and academia nationally and internationally. It is also launched to meet the pressing demands of the nation in the areas of AI and Machine Learning. 

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."

Dr. Sumohana Channappayya, Dean (Research and Development), stated, "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. Long term and robust solutions to problems in these domains require a systematic and disciplined approach that is rooted in the fundamentals of AI. 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."