IIT Bombay and IISc join forces with IBM to accelerate AI and quantum research

IIT Bombay and the Indian Institute of Science have sealed a new partnership with IBM to fast‑track work on next‑generation computing, including advanced artificial intelligence and quantum technologies. The tie‑up builds on IBM’s earlier 2018 work with IIT Bombay and its 2021 collaboration with IISc, expanding into sovereign AI, Indic language model adaptation, multimodal AI, and AI infrastructure. The institutes and IBM will develop tools that adapt large language models to Indian languages efficiently, aiming to improve multilingual AI services. They will also create multimodal AI platforms intended to boost software programming training, enable smoother human‑AI teamwork, and support intelligent operations in hybrid cloud settings. In the IISc‑IBM track, researchers will explore agentic AI systems that can act autonomously, design AI solutions for specific applications, and work on quantum‑computing algorithms. A key goal is to build agentic AI workflows that streamline task coordination across hybrid clouds. The partnership will also produce lightweight time‑series models based on IBM’s Granite family to help with energy‑usage forecasting, anomaly spotting, load‑breakdown analysis and overall energy optimisation. Both institutions say the collaboration will give students and researchers real‑world industry problems to solve, encourage interdisciplinary studies and nurture the next wave of scientific talent.

Context

These programmes aim to strengthen India’s capacity in cutting‑edge computing fields, ensuring local expertise keeps pace with global advances while addressing language diversity and energy challenges.