Meet Mausam, the IIT Delhi professor who wants every Indian to study AI

Mausam believes that most of the high-quality, fundamental research in AI in India is being done at the Indian Institute of Science, and the older IITs like Delhi, Bombay and Madras. While he believes the country’s productivity in AI has been increasing over the last several years, when compared to the US and China, and some smaller nations too, India is quite far behind. “The reason for that is generally the fact that researchers do not return to India after their PhD,” says Mausam, who goes on to explain that many Indian researchers prefer to continue working abroad due to a better quality of life, professional environment and emoluments.

When it comes to applied research, Mausam thinks a fair amount of good work is going on in the country, especially on solving problems of specific interest to India, such as Indian multilingual AI models, using AI in detecting diseases like gallbladder cancer, which is more prevalent in India, AI for pest detection in agriculture, etc. “I would still say that for the size of the country that we are, and the leadership position in the world that we have aspirations for, we are fairly behind on our AI research credentials.”

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AI literacy is a fundamental requirement. When it comes to education around AI in India, Mausam thinks the most important thing for Indian educational institutions to do is to integrate AI with existing disciplines, not just science, but even arts, commerce, medicine and sports. “At IIT-Delhi, we have created a master’s programme in AI, where we allow students from any discipline to join. The idea is that irrespective of the discipline you pursue, its knowledge, in conjunction with the knowledge of AI, will provide you with a unique identity for future success.”

Besides his work in academia, Mausam has collaborated extensively with AI and technology companies in India.

Gaurav Agarwal, co-founder of Tata 1mg, has known Mausam from his days at IIT-Delhi as a student. “I reached out to Mausam when we started building a data science function at Tata 1mg. He was extremely helpful in exploring our approaches and helping us understand potential impacts,” says Agarwal. “Even though our areas of AI exploration, initially, were not his direct area of expertise, he was kind enough to become a thought partner for our team.”

AI company KnowDis’s founder Saurabh Singal also collaborated with Mausam, who decided to work with Singal’s venture because it posed an exceptionally difficult AI challenge that aligned with his research interests. “Mausam’s mind is exceptionally sharp. When we collaborated on an industrial research project at KnowDis, it was clear that he thinks like a chess grandmaster—always looking 10 to 15 moves ahead, he says. “His attention to detail is legendary. Not a single observation escapes his hawk-like attention. His meticulous post-mortem or analysis of errors produces strong performant AI models.”

One piece of advice that Mausam has for AI students and founders of AI companies in India: “Don’t jump in trying to create an AI application without really understanding what AI is and how it has been trained in depth. The hope of a quick path to success can be appealing. But successes often remain elusive, if not built over strong fundamentals.”