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.

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. 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.