Ph.D. Admission
Session: July 2025
Overview
The Department of AI at IIT Hyderabad helps in creating a complete ecosystem for AI Academics and Research at IIT Hyderabad. The department offers B.Tech, M.Tech., and PhD programs (full-time and part-time). The emergence of the department is the consequence of the heavy demand from the industry on artificial intelligence and data analytics, and the need to tackle the many fundamental and foundational research problems arising in a rapidly evolving field. The department’s mission is to:
- Train students to have a sound understanding of the fundamentals of the theory and practise of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.
- Enable students to become leaders in the industry and academia nationally and internationally.
- Meet the pressing demands of the nation in the areas of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.
The Department of Artificial Intelligence has a sizable number of highly dedicated and dynamic faculty members, with a wide variety of expertise. Faculty publishes regularly in top AI conferences and journals such as NeurIPS, ICML, AAAI, IJCAI, CVPR, ICCV, ACL, EMNLP, AAMAS, JMLR, TIP, TACL etc. Currently there are 29 faculty members affiliated with the AI department. Candidates can discover the profiles and teaching/research areas of different faculty members by visiting https://ai.iith.ac.in/faculty/index.html
The PhD students will be provided with excellent laboratory facilities that they can access at any time. The laboratories are equipped with state-of-the-art facilities including software and hardware (including high-end DGX servers and other GPU servers). More details on the compute facility available with the department may be accessed from at https://ai.iith.ac.in/infrastructure/index.html#ai-research
The Department of AI seeks talented and dedicated PhD students to develop highly skilled human resources who can contribute to modern and cutting edge research in AI.
Eligibility Criteria for Admissions to the PhD Programs in the Department of AI
Eligibility criteria for Direct PhD program:
The candidate must hold a Bachelor’s degree in one of CS/EE/EC/AI/DS branches from any of the Centrally Funded Technological Institutes (CFTIs), with a CGPA of 9.0 and above. Here, AI refers to Artificial Intelligence branch, and DS refers to Data Science branch. The list of CFTIs may be accessed here.
Eligibility criteria for Regular PhD program:
The Department invites applications from all candidates who do not qualify under the Direct PhD program, to apply under the Regular PhD program. Below are the detailed eligibility criteria.
(i) If the candidate has only Bachelor’s degree in one of CS/EE/EC/AI/DS branches, but has no Master’s degree, then the following rules apply:
-
If the candidate is from one of the CFTIs, then the candidate must have a CGPA of 8.0 and above. In this case, possessing a valid GATE score is not mandatory.
If the candidate has a CGPA of 9.0 and above, the candidate is strongly encouraged to apply under the Direct PhD category. - If the candidate is not from a CFTI, then possession of a valid GATE score is mandatory.
(OR)
(ii) If the candidate holds an MTech/ME/MS degree in CS/EC/EE/AI/DS branches or related areas in Artificial Intelligence, then the candidate must have already earned the Master’s degree, or should at least be in the final year of the respective program. In the latter case, it would be assumed that the candidate will be able to complete the degree by the time of admission into the PhD program.
(OR)
(iii) Candidates with an MSc/MCA/equivalent PG degree, along with an EMDS (MTech in Data Science) degree from IIT Hyderabad, may also apply for the Regular PhD program.
Eligibility criteria for External PhD program:
The Department also admits students to the external PhD program. While the eligibility criteria for this program remains the same as those criteria listed under Regular PhD, in addition, the candidate must be employed with a relevant employer at the time of application and admission. Furthermore, the candidate must include a no-objection certificate (NOC) from the employer at the time of submission of application.
Candidates may also apply for an external direct PhD (directly after Bachelor’s). Such candidates must possess at least 2 years of relevant work experience post graduation, and must produce an NOC from the employer at the time of application.
Selection Process
The Department will conduct a preliminary shortlisting of applications based on the academic background. Additional criteria, on top of the eligibility criteria listed above, may be employed by the Department, as deemed appropriate, during the shortlisting phase. Candidates who satisfy the shortlisting criteria will need to appear for a written test and/or an interview. The Department reserves the right to set any cut-off criteria for shortlisting the candidates, and to not select any candidate if no appropriate candidates meeting all criteria are found.
Application Process
IIT Hyderabad has a centralized online application portal for the PhD admission. Candidates are requested to visit https://www.iith.ac.in/phdadmissions for the application format and the submission link. Candidates applying for any of the PhD programs are requested to submit their application through the portal.
For any query, kindly write to [email protected]
General Notes
- If a candidate is not from one of CS/EE/EC/AI/DS branches, but has completed relevant coursework on AI related subjects (clearly demonstrated through transcripts), then such candidates may be considered on a subjective basis, solely at the discretion of the department, subject to meeting all other eligibility criteria.
- In cases where the candidate’s parent institute/university provides a percentage instead of CGPA, the candidate must produce relevant document(s) from the parent institute/university clearly stating a valid formula for conversion from percentage to CGPA. In this case, the formula will be used for the preliminary shortlisting of the candidate’s application. If no relevant formula is provided, the candidate’s application will be desk rejected and will not be considered for shortlisting.