IIIT Hyderabad is India's first and leading research-focused IIIT, a not-for-profit public-private partnership university specializing in computer science and AI. It hosts the Responsible and Safe AI Systems course, supported by Open Philanthropy, and is a major hub for AI and machine learning research in India.
IIIT Hyderabad is India's first and leading research-focused IIIT, a not-for-profit public-private partnership university specializing in computer science and AI. It hosts the Responsible and Safe AI Systems course, supported by Open Philanthropy, and is a major hub for AI and machine learning research in India.
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Updated 05/18/26Funding Details
Updated 05/18/26- Annual Budget
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Org Details
Updated 05/18/26The International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad (IIIT-H) was established in 1998 as India's first IIIT under a not-for-profit public-private partnership (N-PPP) model, involving the Government of Telangana and NASSCOM. Located on a 66-acre campus in Hyderabad, the institute has grown into one of India's most recognized institutions for AI and machine learning research, with 112 faculty, 2,605 students, over 7,400 alumni, and 29 active research centers. IIIT-H is widely regarded as having the largest AI and machine learning research group in India. Its research centers include the Kohli Center on Intelligent Systems (KCIS), the Applied AI Research Centre (INAI), the Language Technologies Research Center (LTRC), the Center for Visual Information Technology (CVIT), the Machine Learning Lab (MLL), and the Centre for Computational Social Science (C2S2), among many others. The institute emphasizes research-led education, enabling undergraduate students to participate in ongoing research projects alongside postgraduate and doctoral students. The institute's most directly AI safety-relevant initiative is the "Responsible and Safe AI Systems" NPTEL course taught by Prof. Ponnurangam Kumaraguru (IIIT-H) together with Profs. Balaraman Ravindran and Arun Rajkumar from IIT Madras. This 12-week course covers AI capabilities and imminent risks, long-term and existential AI risks, alignment problems, mechanistic interpretability, adversarial robustness, fairness, privacy, regulatory frameworks (GDPR, EU AI Act, India's DPDP Act), and AGI safety discussions. As of the 2025 edition, the course had 14,720 enrolled learners and 7,308 exam registrations. Open Philanthropy recommended a $7,000 grant in June 2024 to IIIT-H to support this course's development and delivery. Beyond responsible AI education, IIIT-H runs iRASTE (Intelligent Solutions for Road Safety through Technology and Engineering), an Intel- and INAI-supported project applying AI-based ADAS technology to reduce road fatalities in India by 50% by 2030. The Raj Reddy Center for Technology and Society (RCTS) develops technology-based solutions for sustainable societal impact. The institute is funded through tuition, government competitive grants (including from ANRF/DST), and industry partnerships with companies such as Intel, TCS, and others.
Theory of Change
Updated 05/18/26IIIT Hyderabad contributes to AI safety primarily through education and research capacity building. By offering the Responsible and Safe AI Systems course to thousands of Indian engineers and researchers, the institute aims to build a cohort of technically sophisticated practitioners who understand AI alignment, long-term AI risks, and safety-aware development practices. The causal chain is: train a large number of AI practitioners in India on safety and responsibility principles, producing researchers and engineers who embed these considerations into AI development at Indian institutions and companies, thereby reducing safety risks from AI systems built in one of the world's largest and fastest-growing AI ecosystems.
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Updated 05/18/26Projects
Updated 05/18/26
A multi‑agency AI road‑safety project anchored at IIIT Hyderabad and INAI that uses sensors and predictive analytics based on Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) to warn of potential collisions in advance and support large reductions in road accidents in line with national targets.
An online NPTEL/SWAYAM course offered by IIIT Hyderabad and IIT Madras that provides a comprehensive introduction to ethical, social and safety considerations in AI systems, covering topics such as AI risks, robustness, fairness, privacy, interpretability and AI policy/AGI.
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