IIT Bombay, IISc Partner with IBM on AI and Quantum Research

IIT Bombay and IISc expand research collaborations with IBM in agentic AI, sovereign AI, Indic language models and quantum computing, creating opportunities for students and researchers in next-generation technologies.

The Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay) and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) partner with IBM to expand research collaboration in artificial intelligence, quantum computing and next-generation computing systems. The renewed collaborations focus on accelerating research in agentic AI, sovereign AI, Indic language models and advanced computing technologies.

The partnership builds on IBM's long-standing research engagement with both institutions. IBM's collaboration with IIT Bombay dates back to 2018, while its research engagement with IISc begins in 2021. Under the expanded programmes, IBM researchers work alongside faculty members and students to address emerging challenges across AI and computing.

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The IIT Bombay collaboration focuses on sovereign and Indic language model adaptation, multimodal AI, AI infrastructure and knowledge retrieval. Researchers aim to improve multilingual AI capabilities for Indian languages through more efficient model adaptation and optimisation techniques.

The collaboration also explores multimodal AI systems for applications including software programming education, human-AI interaction and intelligent operations across hybrid cloud environments. Research on AI infrastructure and knowledge retrieval seeks to improve the performance, scalability and efficiency of AI systems used to access enterprise knowledge.

The IBM-IISc collaboration focuses on agentic systems, AI applications and quantum computing algorithm development. Researchers plan to develop agentic AI workflows capable of improving orchestration across hybrid cloud environments.

Another research area involves lightweight time-series foundation models based on IBM's Granite model family. These models are intended for energy analytics, including forecasting, anomaly detection, load disaggregation and energy optimisation.

The collaboration also explores quantum and high-performance computing workflows. Researchers aim to develop quantum-centric supercomputing approaches and algorithms that can support scientific discovery by improving the coordination between quantum and classical computing systems.

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The expanded collaborations provide opportunities for students and researchers to work on industry-oriented challenges while engaging with IBM researchers and academic experts. Previous work between IBM and the two institutions has covered artificial intelligence, hybrid cloud, distributed systems and quantum computing, resulting in research outputs as well as postgraduate theses.

Through the latest research agenda, IIT Bombay, IISc and IBM aim to strengthen interdisciplinary research and support the development of scientific talent in emerging computing fields. The collaborations also seek to translate academic research into practical technologies across AI, quantum computing and intelligent infrastructure.