India AI push in HE hits faculty, researcher shortage

India’s US$77 million push to build the country’s first Quantum and AI University in Amaravati in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh is ambitious. The blueprints are aspirational, but they hit an immediate bottleneck: India has a massive shortage of qualified AI professors and researchers. The National Institute of Electronics & Information Technology (NIELIT), operating under India’s Ministry of Electronics & IT, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Andhra Pradesh government to establish the campus. But as India pours millions into cutting-edge AI infrastructure, it faces a fundamental constraint: world-class facilities can be built relatively quickly, but the highly skilled faculty needed to teach, conduct research and train the next generation of AI talent cannot be created overnight. Dr Pankaj Mittal, secretary general, Association of Indian Universities, told University World News: “India needs many more qualified AI faculty…