Team Nexus wins award at International oneM2M Hackathon for fifth consecutive year
IIITH’s Smart City Living Lab team won ‘Best Promotion of oneM2M’ Award (3rd Prize) along with a cash award of 500,000 KRW at the 2025 International oneM2M Hackathon (8th Mobius Developer Challenge), marking the 5th consecutive win for the IIITH at this global event. This year’s recognition celebrates the team’s innovative project, “oneM2M-enabled AI for Resilient Building Systems.” The idea behind it is simple but powerful: How can buildings think smarter, respond faster, and stay resilient—no matter the situation? Their solution blends oneM2M’s interoperable IoT framework with AI-driven intelligence to create buildings that automatically detect issues, adjust conditions, save energy, and keep occupants safe. It is a bold step toward the future of intelligent, sustainable spaces. Team Nexus (Likhith Kanigolla, Kartik Gharde, Peri Reddy Vaka, and Nishitha Varma) brought this idea to life. They were mentored by Ms. Anuradha Vattem and Dr. Karthik Vaidhyanathan.
IIITH Prof. Shows How Simple Quantum Circuits Spoof Thermalization
Research revealing how “thermal” behaviour can emerge from low-complexity dynamics and not necessarily extremely chaotic ones, has been published in the prestigious journal Physical Review Letters. In everyday life, objects equilibrate with the environment. “A steaming cup of tea left on your desk eventually reaches room temperature, losing almost all memory of how it was heated,” says Prof. Shantanav Chakraborty, Center for Quantum Science and Technology, IIITH. He is referring to the process known as thermalization in Physics, where many-particle systems evolve towards equilibrium. “Here, only a few coarse properties, like temperature or energy, matter, and the fine details of the past are effectively forgotten”. According to the professor, quantum physics can mimic thermalization but in an intriguing manner. “A large quantum system can be in a perfectly well-defined pure state, evolving deterministically under Schrödinger’s equation, and yet any small part of it can still look completely random and ‘thermal’”, he says.
IIITH reputation on par with IITs, NIRF not a concern
Prof. Sandeep K Shukla, director of IIIT Hyderabad, in an exclusive interview with Careers360, speaks about the institute’s research-oriented vision, focus on gender and socio-economic diversity, and special admission channels designed for students from underprivileged backgrounds. He also highlighted the direct admission pathways for students from state boards, scholarships offered, how US universities excel and the lessons that can be learnt. IIIT Hyderabad has already established itself as a socially conscious, research-driven institution — one that applies technology to address real societal challenges. Whether it’s through projects Bhashini, our language technology initiatives, or work in computer vision and related areas, the institute has built a strong foundation in research that serves social causes. I believe the next major goal for India — and for IIIT Hyderabad — is to move toward technological sovereignty. Today, we depend heavily on global corporations for almost every layer of our digital infrastructure – from cloud services and operating systems to semiconductors and enterprise applications.
How to bring about a social revolution not through charity but innovation
A recent AIC-IIITH research report highlighted that less that 0.2% of India’s annual CSR funds go towards innovation. This prompted a roundtable discussion of related stakeholders to brainstorm on the existing gaps and suggestions on how CSR can evolve from a mere duty to a catalyst for innovation and impact. Below are the highlights. When India’s startup ecosystem crossed 90,000 registered ventures, it became clear that innovation had firmly taken root in the country’s economic imagination. Yet, despite this explosion of ideas and enterprise, one question lingers: why are India’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funds – running into tens of thousands of crores each year – not flowing toward the country’s innovators? It’s a paradox hiding in plain sight. The law already allows it. Schedule VII of the Companies Act explicitly lists technology incubators and research as eligible areas for CSR spending. And yet, less than 0.2% of India’s annual CSR corpus finds its way to startup innovation. These were the findings of AIC-IIITH’s recent research.
From Language to Intelligence: Prof. Rajeev Sangal’s Legacy in India’s AI Journey
Prof. Rajeev Sangal discusses his reservations about open-sourcing Indic language datasets, the roadmap for Bhashini 2.0, and what he expects at the India AI Impact Summit. When Mission Bhashini was first conceived under MeitY in 2018-19, it promised to bridge India’s language divide by developing speech-to-text AI models and multilingual translation tools. The timing proved prescient, coming four years before OpenAI launched ChatGPT in 2022 which set off the global AI arms race. Today, Indian AI startups are racing to build Indic large language models (LLMs) in an effort to catch up to global tech giants. While key players such as Sarvam AI, krutrim, and the BharatGPT consortium have launched foundational AI models with support across several Indic languages, progress in this domain has been slow due to the lack of digitised, labeled, and cleaned training datasets. Since Indian language content on the internet is limited, developers have had to source language data from a variety of other places in order to train LLMs that understand how Indians actually speak or ask queries.
Bahu Bhasa 2025 – Reimagining Future of Indian Languages
The Open Knowledge Initiatives (OKI) and the Language Technologies Research Centre (LTRC) organized Bahu Bhasa 2025 at the International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad from 6 to 8 November 2025. The event was an effort to engage with the current discourse on Indian languages from the perspectives of policy, technology and community, with the objective of bringing them in conversation with each other. The name “Bahu Bhasa” (not “Bhasha”) challenges linguistic hierarchy that privileges standardized, script-bound languages with institutional power. The event was not only a celebration of Indian languages, but a space to ask difficult, necessary questions about preservation, access, and equity in a rapidly digitizing world. In the opening remarks on Day 1, Prof. Deva Priyakumar (Dean, R&D, IIIT Hyderabad) urged researchers to move beyond academic publications to develop tools that solve real-world communication challenges. Prof. Vasudeva Varma, Head, LTRC described a “silent crisis of storytelling,” urging that India must make its linguistic heritage open, lest others define it for us.
Prof. U Deva Priyakumar appointed new Dean of R&D
The International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad (IIIT Hyderabad) announced the appointment of Prof. U Deva Priyakumar as its new Dean of Research & Development, succeeding Prof. C V Jawahar, who held the position for two consecutive terms. Prof. Deva Priyakumar is a Professor and the Founding Project Director of IHub-Data, a technology innovation hub at the International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad. Until recently, he also served as Head of the Center for Computational Natural Sciences and Bioinformatics (CCNSB). His research spans AI applications in Chemistry and Biology, computer-aided drug design, and AI for healthcare. With over 150 publications in reputed international journals, Prof. Priyakumar’s research has earned him several prestigious recognitions, including the Chemical Research Society of India Medal, Indian National Science Academy Medal, Innovative Young Biotechnologist Award, and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Invitation Fellowship.
Why Semiconductor Companies Are Turning to IIITH for Fresh Talent
Semiconductor companies are adopting a more targeted approach to campus hiring as they seek specialised talent to meet their growing needs. Once reliant on traditional recruitment methods, these firms are now focusing on a smaller pool of highly skilled candidates, forging close partnerships with premier institutions. At International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad (IIITH), the Embedded Systems Workshop (ESW) gives students direct engagement with industry players. Qualcomm provides real-world problem statements and mentors students during the course while supplying advanced hardware kits to implement solutions on mobile platforms. Texas Instruments has developed a course focused on analogue and digital roles, while Qualcomm’s programme centres on design. Allegro Micro Systems offers a verification and design course, and Blaize Semiconductors has created a design-driven module. Ola Electric also runs a VLSI course at International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad.
IIITH and NIFTEM-K Sign MoU to Strengthen Industry–Academic Collaboration
The International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad (IIITH) and the National Institute of Food Technology Entrepreneurship and Management, Kundli (NIFTEM-K) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to foster collaboration between academia and industry through joint initiatives in research, training, and innovation. The agreement aims to bring together expertise from both institutions in food technology, computing, sensing, artificial intelligence (AI), computer vision, blockchain, drones, and robotics. The collaboration will focus on developing technologies for agricultural produce grading using computer vision-based sensing, food and product traceability and provenance through blockchain, bio-sensors for detecting adulteration and counterfeits, and AI/ML for large-scale sensor data processing. The MoU was signed during a visit by Prof. Harinder Singh Oberoi, Director, NIFTEM-K, and Prof. Vinkel Kumar Arora to IIIT Hyderabad.
IIITH and TalentSprint launch a cutting-edge certificate programme to prepare professionals for the GenAI revolution
IIITH, India’s premier research-led institute in information technology has collaborated with TalentSprint, Part of Accenture, a leading global education company powered by AI, to offer advanced programs for professionals seeking to lead in the era of Generative AI (GenAI). Building on the success of legacy AIML programme, which has trained and transformed thousands of professionals in advanced AI and machine learning, the launch of this Certificate Programme in Generative AI and Prompt Engineering marks a decisive step forward in creating a future-ready AI workforce. Generative AI is transforming the world today. From writing code and developing products to automating customer experiences, GenAI has become central to how industries innovate and scale. According to recent reports, over 78% of global organizations are actively exploring or investing in GenAI capabilities.