IIT Delhi Abu Dhabi campus opens January
First international IIT campus opens new door for collaboration with India
#UAE #India - India’s leading technical education and research institution, the Indian Institute Of Technology Delhi (IIT-Delhi) will open the doors of its first international campus in Abu Dhabi in January 2024 (although its temporary facility). IIT-Delhi Abu Dhabi (ITT-DAD) will offer Master's courses from January, while Bachelor's degree programmes will be offered from September.
SO WHAT? - The strategic importance of trade and diplomatic relations between India and the UAE in the new digital age has been growing, as have UAE technology investments in India. Meanwhile, Abu Dhabi is actively incentivising Indian technology firms to setup operations in the UAE capital. As the backbone of India's technology industry and core talent pipeline, IIT-Delhi Abu Dhabi could help build a new bridge between India and UAE tech sectors.
Established in the 1950s and with a current FY2023–24 budget of about $1.2 billion, the state-owned and funded Indian Institute of Technology (IITs) has provided the backbone of India's technology industry.
IIT alumni include Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet INC and Google, Nikesh Arora, CEO of Palo Alto Networks, Narayan Murthy, Co-founder of Infosys and Flipkart founders Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal.
ITT-DAD first course will be a Master's degree programme in energy transition and sustainability. Future courses will include AI, mathematics, computer science and engineering, health care, plus other engineering disciplines.
The new insititute plans to collaborate with institutions such as the Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI), New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD), and Technology Innovation Institute (TII) on programmes and advanced research.Th e
ITT-DAD will offer a variety of Bachelor's, Master's and PhD programmes from September 2024.
ZOOM OUT - UAE is making strategic technology investments in India, whilst encouraging Indian startups and scaleups to open international offices, regional MENA operations and R&D labs in the country. Abu Dhabi in particular has been actively targeting rising Indian tech firms.
ADQ's Alpha Wave Incubation Fund (now closed) targeted early stage Indian tech startups, bringing them to Abu Dhabi (eg. Dealshare, Entropik, Indiagold, Verloop), while G42's $10 billion technology venture capital fund targets Indian scaleups. Other investment initiatives include Abu Dhabi Investment Office's package of incentives offered to Indian tech firms to setup international operations in Abu Dhabi.
The Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) between the UAE and India, signed in May 2022, has contributed in raising overall trade exchange to over US$80 billion.
IMO - Although it seems to be short on attention-grabbing headlines, India’s strategic importance in the development and adoption of artificial intelligence should not be underestimated. According to the World Economic Forum, India is expected to spend some $11.78 billion on AI by 2025, while AI could add almost $1 trillion to the country's economy by 2035. So, India will be a key partner for the UAE as it builds a global hub for AI.
India has always provided a pipeline for global IT talent, with the USA being responsible for most of India's science and technology ‘brain drain’. More bilateral cooperation could create more opportunities for Indian graduates in the UAE and also at home. The opening of IIT-DAD and the future partnerships that it will inspire, could signal a new era of technology collaboration, foreign direct investment and R&D collaboration between the two countries.