IIT Kharagpur sets up CoE in artificial intelligence research

The scope of the centre will include education, training, research, projects, incubation and entrepreneurship in AI and related domains.

IIT Kharagpur is setting up a first-of-its-kind centre of excellence in artificial intelligence (AI) research that will be seed funded by Capillary Technologies Limited, with Rs 5.64 crore for setting up computing infrastructure, hardware simulation platforms, software and designing the coursework.

The scope of the centre will include education, training, research, projects, incubation and entrepreneurship in AI and related domains.

Professor P P Chakrabarti, Director, IIT Kharagpur, said, “IIT KGP has developed a deep expertise in the overall area of artificial intelligence, machine learning, data sciences and its applications in several critical domains over a long period of time, among others. It is time we lead this initiative in AI to fulfill the need of AI technologies in the 21^st century.”

IIT KGP would start the centre with a teaching and learning and knowledge dissemination programme. Faculty from the institute, Capillary specialist and deep-learning industry experts would work together to prepare the curricula, which will include short-term credit courses and certificate programme for internal and external students and industrial training programmes.

Aneesh Reddy, Co-founder and CEO, Capillary Technologies, said, “The way we look at AI, it is the future not just in our industry but in every aspect of life. Over the last few years, we have invested over Rs 40 lakh annually in various research projects that hold the promise of shaping the future of our industry. We wish to continue our association with IIT KGP by investing a similar amount over a period of time to make this AI centre a truly industry-leading one.”

Capillary Technologies was incubated at IIT KGP and has worked in the domain of cloud-based customer engagement, e-commerce platforms and related services. It has already supported such activities in IIT KGP through funded projects for developing AI applications in the retail sector, manpower training modules, internships, recruitment and enabling industry as well as government engagement.