Indian Institute of Technology(IIT) Hyderabad is launching a full-fledged B.Tech. program in Artificial Intelligence from the coming Academic Year (2019-2020). This the first Indian educational institution to offer a full-fledged B.Tech. program in AI and likely the third institute globally - after Carnegie Mellon University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) US.

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According to IIT Hyderabad, this course will enroll around 20 students who can take the program through the JEE-Advanced. The course will help the students to have a sound understanding of the fundamentals of theory and practice of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.

It also aims to enable students to become leaders in the industry and academia nationally and internationally and meet the pressing demands of the nation in the areas of AI and Machine Learning. IIT Hyderabad is already offering an M.Tech. program in Artificial Intelligence – Machine Learning.

Speaking about the importance of this 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 course comprises algorithms from the Computer Science Department, Signal Processing from Electrical Engineering Department, Robotics from Mechanical Engineering Department and Mathematical Foundations. It will also focus on application verticals such as healthcare, agriculture, smart mobility, among many others. Further, the ethical impact of AI and its technologies on areas such as privacy, bias and related issues will also be a key component of this B.Tech. Program.

Highlighting the salient features of this course, Dr. Sumohana Channappayya, Dean (Research and Development), IIT Hyderabad, said, “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.”

Further, Dr. Sumohana Channappayya added that the potential for AI to improve the quality of human lives is tremendous. This program will train students in the fundamentals of computer science, AI and ML in addition to sensitising them to the ethical issues in deploying AI-based solutions.