March 01, 2024, Hyderabad: International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad (IIITH) announced that it has received a grant funding of USD 186,000 from Qualcomm Technologies Inc., to be used over the next three years towards research in the field of Edge AI and Development of AI Models and establishment of an Edge AI Research lab by IIITH. The lab will work on developing Edge AI use cases on Qualcomm platforms, for which the company will offer its Qualcomm® Innovators Development Kit (QIDK) along with technical and knowledge support and mentorship to the research team led by Professor Ramesh Loganathan.

The Qualcomm Edge AI Research lab was inaugurated by Leendert van Doorn, Senior Vice President of Qualcomm, at the IIITH campus today. Speaking at the occasion he said, “Qualcomm and IIITH share the vision of a future where India is at the forefront of AI innovation, fueled by creativity, collaboration, and the relentless pursuit of excellence. Today’s announcement marks the beginning of a three-year journey of collaboration, research, and innovation for advancing Edge AI technologies. Qualcomm remains committed to providing the most promising innovators with the technologies and the expertise to shape not just India’s future but for the world.”

Commenting on the collaboration, Prof P J Narayanan, Director, IIITH said, “As AI gets more pervasive, AI on the edge will be the next frontier. We are very happy that Qualcomm has set up an Edge AI lab at IIITH that will now amplify the research efforts already underway”.

Some of the potential technology collaboration areas at the Edge AI lab include:

 - Computer vision, graphics - image processing, computer graphics and ML generation, processing, and understanding of visual data and techniques & tools required

- Edge computing – compilers, parallel and distributed systems, virtualisation, cloud computing & complexity theory (CVEST)

- VLSI and Embedded Systems - optics and photonics/ flexible electronics, analogue and mixed-signal design, radio frequency integrated circuit (RFIC) design, low-power VLSI design & algorithms etc

- 5G and platform machine learning - embedded systems and IoT, smart city research

"IIITH has long been associated with Qualcomm on multiple areas since its inception. This lab is yet another in this series, and will help take our existing strengths in the Edge AI areas to new heights", said Prof C V Jawahar, Dean R&D, IIITH

Shashi Reddy, Vice President of Engineering, at Qualcomm India Pvt. Ltd., said, “Our collaboration with IIITH will usher in an era where innovation flourishes. Together, we aim to unlock the vast potential of Indian R&D and cultivate a rich pool of Edge AI use cases and solutions. The synergy between Qualcomm and IIITH holds promise in empowering Indian universities and intellect in the years ahead.”