Speaking at Marking tech day – Hyderabad way, Prof. Ramesh Loganathan says: In the late 1990s, when the city was barely present on the IT map, there were proactive efforts to attract product R&D companies. Very quickly, the city became home to majors like Microsoft, Oracle, and others. That formed the grounding for an industry steeped in deep tech and product engineering, unlike cities that were centred primarily around services. Alongside this, the city has a strong tech education system and a deep research ecosystem. It has the largest number of government research labs, a leading IIT, and one of the country’s strongest AI research groups at IIIT-H, along with a globally ranked business school. IIIT-H has grown into a top-ranking research institution in the country and a leading centre for AI research in Asia. It has played a key role in providing talent to major tech companies while also co-creating emerging tech solutions through funded research projects.

IIIT Hyderabad’s Division of Flexible Learning (DFL) announces the launch of its new 12-week online certificate program, “Engineering Agentic AI Systems: Agentic AI from Concepts to Practice.” The program will be delivered by Prof. Karthik Vaidhyanathan, Assistant Professor at IIIT Hyderabad and a leading researcher in the field of AI and Software Engineering. The program offers a hands-on, practice-oriented path for learners to build, test, and deploy reliable agentic AI systems grounded in real-world applications. Prof. Karthik Vaidhyanathan, course instructor, noted: “Agentic AI calls for a system-centric way of thinking where engineering matters as much as, if not more than, the models themselves. This course brings together our academic research and years of practical experience to help learners build Agentic AI systems that are reliable, scalable, sustainable, and ready for real-world deployments.”

In an era where digital security is as critical as physical infrastructure, and as India’s digital ambitions accelerate at an unprecedented pace, the question is no longer whether systems are connected — but whether they are secure. At the centre of this conversation is Prof Sandeep K Shukla, Director of IIIT Hyderabad, who is steering the Cyber MANTHAN Centre, inaugurated in September 2025, towards addressing some of the country’s most pressing cyber vulnerabilities. Envisioned as a premier hub for research in cybersecurity, forensics, and trusted infrastructure, the centre brings together cutting-edge innovation while building strategic collaborations — including with law enforcement agencies like the Telangana Police to develop ‘Vyuha’-driven, future-ready solutions. With a strong focus on critical infrastructure protection, AI-led security systems, and capacity building, the centre aims to bridge the gap between research, policy, and real-world cyber defence.