Prof. P J Narayanan’s interview with DataQuest
Indian academic corridors are standing between two atriums. On the one hand, some struggle with concerns on integrity in academic research (Whether in publications or
corporate projects).. On the other hand, some are driving front-runner work in drug discovery, cancer imaging, clinical research, road safety and environmental impact. Let’s find out where India is heading as we enter the Sophomore level in AI. It is very sad and unfortunate for India to get such notoriety with respect to academic honesty. We must establish models and incentives that promote honest work and just rewards. The regulatory mechanism insists on doctoral degrees for all faculty in all kinds of institutions. Good understanding and teaching abilities must suffice to do well in teaching institutions that form the bulk of our higher education institutions. Everyone wants a PhD despite their own aspirations or guidance available.
R&D Showcase 2025
IIITH’s annual R&D Showcase provided a unique opportunity for viewers to interact with faculty and students to understand their work in more tangible forms through demos, prototypes and presentations in keeping with the institute’s endeavour to promote applied research that benefits society. This year’s Showcase was themed Tech for Sustainable Futures was held on 8 and 9 March. The Showcase included 300+ research posters, demos and models from IIITH’s 28 research centres, confluences, research reflections and a research startup showcase by Centre for Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE). The event had roundtable discussions, plenary panel discussions, student seminars, industry-research dialogues etc. Prof. Martial Herbet, Dean and University Professor of Robotics, School of Computer Science, CMU gave the inaugural talk on Challenges towards the next generation of AI sytems.
Facing the Reality of Modern AI
Modern AI is poised to ignite the world — in all senses! Built upon different architectures of deep neural networks, Large Language Models (LLMs) and Large Vision Models (LVMs) enable computers to understand and generate text and visual content. They are not just transforming industries, they are reshaping the very fabric of how we seek and express knowledge in the ocean of data in the world, most of which cannot be known by any single human individual. As academia and industry come together to unlock their full potential, it’s crucial to examine the workings behind these models, and look at the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. At the core, there really is no magic. The models are designed to recognise patterns, generate content or make predictions by minimising a loss function by propagating errors backwards through multiple deep layers of a neural network, arranged in various architectures.
IIITH’s Smart Fix for Hyderabad’s Water Woes
IIITH along with treating water for reuse and collecting rainwater, made use of various smart solutions – in-house sensors and the creation of a digital twin, among others to preserve water and responsibly use it. According to researchers, one of the foremost things needed to address water woes is to understand the water consumption to plug leakages and also remove illegal connections. They also measure water quantity and quality using sensors. Wherever possible, the institute uses water treated through sewage treatment plants (STP) or collecting using rainwater harvesting so that the groundwater and even water supplied by the HMWSSB remains untouched or at least minimised. They have signed an MoU to run a trial to see if the IIITH model can be implemented in a nearby colony. Smart City Living Lab, IIITH is also in talks with other municipalities to help them address water woes.
Innovative ML model -switching approach for real-time traffic monitoring on smartphones
Four CSE second-year students of IIITH’s demonstrated a dynamic ML model switching approach on smartphones for real-time traffic monitoring. students have come up with a dynamic machine learning (ML) model-switching technique on smartphones, enabling real-time traffic monitoring that adapts to changing conditions depending on the traffic flow. The team comprising undergraduate second-year CSE students – Kriti Gupta, Ananya Halgatti, Priyanshi Gupta, and Larissa Lavanya – under PhD student Akhila Matathammal’s mentorship and guidance of Prof. Vaidyanathan, who is part of software Architecture 4 Sustainability group at Software Engineering Research Centre, worked on a dynamic model switching approach titled EdgeML Balancer, for object detection on edge devices such as smartphones.
IIITH’s SCLL plays pivotal role in TSDSI’s White Paper on Smart City Solutions
The rapid urbanization of modern cities has driven the evolution of Smart City initiatives, emphasizing sustainability, citizen-centric services, and enhanced quality of life. As cities worldwide strive to optimize infrastructure and resource management, intelligent enabling technologies continue to play a critical role in this transformation. TSDSI, India’s Telecom SDO and a Type 1 partner of the global oneM2M Partnership Project, conducted the oneM2M Stakeholders Day on 12 February 2025 at the Research & Innovation Park, IIT Delhi. The white paper on Innovations For Sustainable Urban Living: Insights into Smart City Solutions was officially launched during the event, marking a significant milestone in contributions to Smart Cities.
IIITH researchers work on unlearning AI biases
As part of the Techforward Research Seminar series, Prof. Ponnurangam Kumaraguru briefly touches upon the pitfalls of LLMs and the ways in which they can be made to unlearn or forget content. In today’s world we rely on technology to accelerate response times to our tasks or queries, to gather accurate information and assist us efficiently. Let’s take the example of 3 everyday technological tools that almost everyone lives with – Google Translate, ChatGPT and WhatsApp. Now, let’s look at some of their imperfections. For instance, a test – that anyone can conduct – across these 3 tools reveals the gender biases that are present. In Google Translate, the prompt for “My friend is a doctor” will translate it to “Mera friend ek doctor hai” while “My friend is a nurse” translates it to “Meri friend ek doctor hai”.
AlphaGrep Partners with IIITH to create ‘AlphaGrep Quantitative Research Lab’
AlphaGrep announced a strategic academic collaboration with IIITH’s Precog group of researchers who study, analyse, and build various aspects of AI systems. Spanning several areas ranging from Applied ML, Responsible and Safe AI, NLP, and Social Network Analysis, Precog develops solutions that contribute to the greater good of society. As part of this collaboration, AlphaGrep has committed ₹3.5 crores to support groundbreaking research, skill-building, and real-world applications of AI/ML in quantitative finance. The initiative spearheaded by Prof. P Kumaraguru (PK), Mr. M Mutreja, and Mr, H Mandalia, will facilitate faculty and student driven research, fostering technical advancements and strengthening the bridge between academia and industry.
Social Internship Turned Into an Enduring Commitment
Here’s an inspiring one from IIITH alumni Chandan Shrivastava and Nikhil Agrawal’s pages. It was meant to be a routine 2-month-long internship at Eklavya, a non-profit based out of Madhya Pradesh. As part of the initial field study to lay out the ground work, Chandan and Nikhil, who were then final year BTech students of Computer Science, hit the ground running by first getting to know the organisation itself, the ‘why’ behind it, and the children being impacted by it. “We are all aware of a section of society that lacks basic rights like an access to education, but we typically don’t pay much attention. In the hinterlands of Madhya Pradesh, we experienced up close what it’s like to be enthusiastic about going to school and learning but being unable to do so,” narrates Chandan.
Generative AI tools for Coding – Why getting all ducks in a row is critical
Recently a roundtable hosted by IIITH on Generative AI tools for the initial phase of the software development life cycle, saw the meeting of industry leaders, technologists, innovators and research minds. What emerged was a white paper, that catalyzed insights into actionable strategies, for organizations to harness the full potential of Generative AI. Gen AI tools continue to charm, excite and induce cold fear. Post pandemic, when ChatGPT lowered the boom on an unsuspecting world, it was a veritable IT Gold Rush, with a global scramble for a piece of the action. In the digital world, Gen AI tools have become transformative assets in software development lifecycle, enabling accelerated coding, improved collaboration among developers, and innovative problem solving.