IITs to offer programs in artificial intelligence as India faces talent shortage

• India’s IITs are reportedly launching bachelor’s degree and certificate courses in Artificial Intelligence to overcome the demand supply gap.
  
• The engineering schools have also introduced separate incubation centres for research processes.
  
• The Indian government in its latest budget session, made a big push for AI, launching a National Programme focussed in AI under its Digital India initiative.

With the rise in automation, more Indian companies are aggressively hunting for candidates skilled in Artificial Intelligence, but are faced with a talent shortage.

To bridge the gap the Indian Institute of Technology has announced several new professional courses targeting artificial intelligence and machine learning.

The courses will include both degree and certificate programs including a Bachelor’s of Technology (B.Tech) in Artificial Intelligence. The announcement comes on the back of a survey by ManpowerGroup India that recorded that over 76% employers in India will increase hirings.

IIT Hyderabad leads the plans to introduce a bachelor’s program in AI for the upcoming academic session. Meanwhile, IIT Kharagpur has launched a six-month certificate course in the subject.

IITs also currently offers a master’s programme in data science and robotics. It is also reportedly may launch a course on ’Advance Machine Learning’ later this year.

Manmeet Singh, ManpowerGroup India, a recruitment firm, told PTI that with the advent of robots, it is important to ensure India’s workforce is aligned with the growing technology.

India is estimated to have less than 10% of data scientists available globally. Separately, a survey done by Analytics Vidhya and ed-tech platform Great Learnings revealed that India currently has 50,000 vacancies in data and analytics, with another 39,000 analytics jobs expected to become available by 2020.

Indian IT majors including Bosch, GE Research and Ericsson, for their part, have also been funding various research programs at several IITs.

Microsoft India recently announced to set up labs and incubation centers across 10 universities aimed at training the youth in automation skills. The IT giant also rolled out an ‘Intelligent Cloud Club’ collaborative program to skill up technical knowledge in students.

Several other engineering schools have also recently received backing from government agencies and defense organisations such as Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry and Defense Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) among others.

India’s push for AI

In its most recent budget, Indian government announced a key national programme focussed on AI under its ‘Digital India’ initiative. This will include the setting up of AI centers across the country which is also expected to help AI-based startups in India.

Addressing the issue, the stand-in Finance Minister Piyush Goyal, said that a National AI portal will be in place soon to create AI awareness among the people. The government may also create 100,000 digital villages, five years down the line.

See also:
Budget 2019: The Indian government is launching a national program for development of artificial intelligence

Microsoft will train 10,000 Indian engineers in artificial intelligence

This skill may be the most in-demand for the changing job market in India, according to LinkedIn