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2025 Rewind — India’s Higher Education Reimagined

In 2025, Indian higher education marked a decisive shift toward global relevance, with universities strengthening their role as hubs of advanced research, innovation, and talent creation. Institutions increasingly focused on interdisciplinary learning, industry-linked curricula, and the integration of AI and emerging technologies to address real-world challenges. One of the most disruptive forces reshaping curriculum design today is the rapid normalisation of Generative and Agentic AI. As Prof. Sandeep K. Shukla, Director of IIIT Hyderabad, notes, when AI systems can effortlessly write essays, generate code, and answer questions, traditional content-based assessments no longer measure learning meaningfully. He emphasises the need for universities to rethink evaluation through transparent GenAI usage policies, oral examinations, and personalised assessment models. Prof. Shukla also cautions that students trained primarily in tasks easily automated by AI may face significant employability challenges.

Prof. S K Shukla: From 2025 insights to 2026 action

As 2025 draws to a close, a reflective yet forward-looking view highlights several defining technology trends for India, many overlapping with global shifts. Foremost is the steady but decelerating progress in foundational GenAI models, GPT-5, while strong, fell short of inflated expectations. At the same time, the growing availability of open-weight models, the US market shock following China’s low-cost DeepSeek breakthrough, and India’s long-awaited shift from merely deploying AI applications to building foundational models mark a significant transition. Equally important is India’s rude awakening on tech sovereignty after Microsoft suspended Nayara Energy’s Office 365 access. The incident exposed our near-total dependence on foreign technology. In the late 1980s, organisations like CMC and TRDDC pursued indigenous compilers and hardware, but the free-trade optimism of the 1990s sidelined such efforts. We abandoned semiconductors, OS and core software, exporting talent to build products sold back to us at high cost.

Prof. Sandeep K Shukla outlines the institution’s roadmap ahead

Prof. S K Shukla who took over as director of IIITH four months ago laid out his vision for the institute. Prof. Shukla said: I have identified a few areas where we can achieve significant impact. One of these is healthcare technology—particularly AI-driven healthcare solutions spanning data analytics, instrumentation, diagnostics, and wearables. A new centre, CDiTH, was established with a mandate to drive this kind of translational research. India faces an enormous healthcare challenge. For a population of over 1.5 billion, access to quality hospitals remains limited and often depends on one’s ability to pay. Second is cybersecurity, which is also my strength. In this, sovereignty will be a goal since India needs it. The government has spent a lot of money by supporting startups in this field but the results haven’t been great. The third focus area is Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI). We are in the process of finalizing a joint VLSI master’s program with the UoH, which is located next door to our campus.

IIITH and IDRBT sign MoU for BFSI research

IDRBT has signed a MoU with IIITH to collaborate in academics, research, training, student exchange and skill development in BFSI sector. The MoU was signed under the leadership of Prof. Sandeep Shukla, director, IIITH, and Dr Deepak Kumar, director, IDRBT, in the presence of Prof. H. Krishnamurthy, chief research scientist (Retd.), IISc Bengaluru, and member of the governing councils of both institutions. The institutions agreed to explore areas of collaboration for public welfare by leveraging their combined reach and capacity. Joint PhD programs will be offered to researchers in areas such as digital payments, cyber security, vulnerability management, adoption of AI for customer ease, cryptography, blockchain, and fungible and non-fungible tokens. Other areas of collaboration include standardisation and validation of technology in BFSI, development of domain-specific SLMs, cyber security initiatives, and improving user experience.

Microsoft launches flagship DCA at IIITH

Aiming to equip aspiring software professionals with industry-ready skills, Microsoft on Wednesday launched its global flagship Data Centre Academy (DCA) at International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad (IIIT). The initiative is being implemented in collaboration with Young India Skills University (YISU), with United Way of Hyderabad as the non-profit partner and Selasian Consultancy Services as the training partner, according to a release. The DCA is a global skilling programme designed to bridge the talent gap in the fast-growing data centre sector, as Hyderabad emerges as a major hub for multinational technology firms. It is the first such programme in the country aimed at preparing entry- and mid-level professionals for data centre operations and management. The release added that the academy will offer hands-on, industry-aligned training focused on practical, job-ready skills, with a curriculum benchmarked to global standards.

CIE-IIIT Hyderabad Hosts Winter 2025 Demo Day

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CIE-IIITH hosts Winter 2025 Demo Day

Winter 2025 Demo Day at CIE@IIIT Hyderabad featured 13 startups building research-driven, cutting-edge solutions in AI, intelligent sensing, MedTech devices, robotics, energy storage, language technologies, and space systems. They are drawn from CIE’s three accelerators — Avishkar (DeepTech), the MedTech Incubator, and the AIC-Social Accelerator. These research-led startups are translating applied work from IIIT Hyderabad labs such as CVIT, RRC, CVEST, and SPCRC into deployable technologies. Their work spans areas such as intelligent sensing, AI-driven diagnostics, autonomous systems, sustainable materials, and next-generation infrastructure, translating academic research into solutions with measurable societal, environmental, and economic impact. Startups presented validated technologies, market traction, and investment readiness to a curated pool of investors, including SucSEED Venture Partners, Abyro Capital, O2 VC Fund, Hyderabad Angels, Pavestone VC and Gruhas etc.

IIITH launches 3-month certificate program on Engineering Agentic AI System

IIITH, through its DFL, has announced the launch of a new 12-week online certificate program titled “Engineering Agentic AI Systems: Agentic AI from Concepts to Practice.” The program will be delivered by Prof. Karthik V. Designed to be hands-on and practice-oriented, the course enables learners to design, build, test, and deploy agentic AI systems grounded in real-world use cases. Speaking on the launch, Prof. S K Shukla said: “This program reinforces our commitment to advancing high-quality AI education at scale—for working professionals as well as for students who are unable to partake in the world-class AI research at the IIITH. Agentic AI represents a significant leap in how transformer-based AI models are orchestrated into parallel pipelines of complex tasks to automate end-to-end business processes. By empowering learners beyond our campus to build agentic workflow solutions, we aim to help create a competent workforce for a rapidly evolving IT industry.”