IIT Kanpur & IIT Hyderabad showstoppers with AI course

Indore (Madhya Pradesh): Despite the number of seats increasing by 366, taking the total number of seats to 16,598 seats in 23 Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) this year, there is no variation in the top 1,000 ranks required for admissions to the institute. More candidates from Madhya Pradesh and other states are standing in queue at IIT Kanpur and IIT Roorkee.

The reason for most high-ranking students waiting to get into these two IITs are the Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Data Science courses. AI is the course most sought-after by candidates. But, currently, it is available in only 2 IITs out of 23 IITs in the country. IIT Roorkee will be starting the course from this academic session. IIT Kanpur had started the course as a pilot run for other IITs in the last session.

The Mathematics and Computing course that had lost popularity in recent years has resurfaced and is again among the top choices for students. The reason is the latest advancement in the course and technology.

Institute-wise, IIT Bombay has the maximum number of Computer Science Engineering (CSE) seats (171), followed by IIT Dhanbad (139) and IIT Kanpur (129). IIT Delhi has 99 CSE seats and IIT Roorkee has 109.

10 IITs with 15 branches, Math, AI glitter after CSE

‘This year, 10 IITs have started 15 branches of engineering,’ Kapil Birthare, JEE mentor, said. He added that IIT Bombay had started a four-year Electrical Engineering (EE) course with 47 seats.

‘IIT Roorkee has started Data Science and AI engineering with 40 seats which is among the most popular with students,’ Birthare said. IIT Guwahati has 20 seats in the EE course. IIT Hyderabad has started an EE course with IC design and technology and is offering 16 seats.

IIT Gandhinagar has started a 5-year course in Computer Science Engineering and an EE course with 20 seats each. IIT Jodhpur has started Physics with specialisation and Chemistry with specialisation with 32 seats each. Others have started new branches, too.

‘CSE is popular as usual, being a safe choice, but other branches—especially AI—have garnered a lot of interest among students followed by Mathematics,’ Birthare said.

No relief for the Top 1,000; a 50 rank relief after 1,000

"With the announcement of new seats, students were expecting that the rank required for admissions will get some relief,” Kamal Sharma, JEE mentor, said. That, however, did not happen. ‘For the top 1,000 ranking students, the ranks remained the same at which seats were allotted,’ Sharma said. He added that this was because competition was stiffer in the top crème de la crème. ‘However, there’s a marginal relaxation after 1,000 of 50 ranks for students, as seen in the first Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JoSAA) mock allotment,’ Sharma said.