For those not in the know, Big Blue runs an Artificial Intelligence Horizons Network (AIHN), which now comprises eight premier universities. However, IIT-B is the first AI horizons member to operate outside North America.

The key areas of research will look at developing AI applications in industries such as financial services, retail and healthcare. It will work towards issues surrounding AI such as data ownership, creating benchmarks on using data.

Professor Devang Khakhar, Director, IIT Bombay, said that they were looking forward to the collaboration with IBM and the peer universities in the network. He said: “I think our students can benefit significantly from the collaboration. IBM has access to real data, which is of great importance with regard to solving problems of significance.”

Khakhar said that the way the collaboration would work is that the topic of the research projects of Master’s or Ph.D. students would be aligned with the expectations of IBM.

He said: “Students will work under the guidance of our professors and experts from IBM.”

Uday Khedkar, Head of Department, Computer Science and Engineering, said that the collaboration would provide an ability to solve harder problems.

While the collaboration is with the Department of Computer Science and Engineering,  Khakhar said that in future students from other departments might also join if their research is in line with the requirements of IBM.

Arvind Krishna, senior vice-president, Hybrid Cloud, and director, IBM Research, said: “We at IBM fundamentally believe that this is not something we can do alone. We have to do it with the ecosystem of collaboration across academia. In order to that, we created the Artificial Intelligence Horizons Network.”

Krishna said: “We aim to accelerate the pace of innovation for AI in India, working hand-in-hand with some of the top scientists and research scholars in the country.”