IIT-Delhi sets up School of Artificial Intelligence; PhD course will begin from January 2021

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi has established an independent School of Artificial Intelligence (ScAI) on its campus. The school is going to offer its own PhD program in the next admission cycle - January 2021- as well. Postgraduate degree courses are under planning, said the institute. Professor V Ramgopal Rao, director of IIT Delhi, spoke about the future of artificial intelligence and the role of ScAI in it. He said, “The future progress of a nation will depend on its AI capability. Therefore, many countries have started investing heavily in AI. India is also responding to this.” He mentioned how we were “lagging behind in some very important aspects, specifically in the number of AI researchers in the country and the overall quality and quantity of AI research”. IIT Delhi is trying to fill this very gap with the establishment of the School of AI, said the director. “One of the goals of setting up ScAI is also to strengthen IIT Delhi’s place on the global map of AI,” the professor added. Speaking about the AI programs that the school is going to offer in the coming future, Rao said in the official statement, “A program in AI is needed because current degrees are broad-based, and do not make it easy for students to learn the depths of different subfields within AI". IIT-Delhi also brushed upon the objectives that they would like to fufill with the ScAI. it will enhance the “global visibility” for the institute with its “external branding”. The research productivity will see a boost as over 50 IIT Delhi faculty members with expertise in the field of AI will come together. While the focus initially is on generating postgraduate level courses, the school aims at churning out professional-level educational programmes.