Department of Computer Science & Engineering, IIT Gandhinagar

Responsible, scalable computing for India and the world

The department's decade-long vision is to pair fundamental advances in AI, theory, and systems with deployable technologies for inclusive education, sustainable living, digital health, and secure public infrastructure.

Research culture

What will guide the department

The vision emphasizes research that is deep enough to advance computer science and practical enough to be validated in the environments where it will be used.

Responsible scale

Build computing systems that are reliable, secure, verifiable, and ready for deployment in high-stakes settings.

Societal priorities

Advance work that addresses inclusive education, sustainable living, digital health, accessibility, and public infrastructure.

Open collaboration

Create open datasets, reproducible tools, and durable partnerships with clinical, industrial, policy, and academic collaborators.

High-TRL demonstrations

From research prototypes to deployable systems

Three initiatives anchor the near-term translation agenda: assessment infrastructure, sovereign AI systems, and clinical AI that can leave the lab.

Assessment infrastructure

IITGN Exam-App

A secure, cross-platform examination application for BYOD settings, designed to lower operational overhead while preserving academic integrity.

  • Electron-based desktop app across Windows, macOS, and Linux
  • Controlled exam environment with PDF rendering and process monitoring
  • Roadmap: proctoring, admin dashboards, sandboxing, offline sync, and LLM-assisted question generation and evaluation

Sovereign AI systems

Code, math, and reasoning models

In collaboration with Soket AI, the department is developing multilingual, code-centric models for reasoning, software engineering, and secure deployment.

  • 120B-parameter multilingual LLM under training and evaluation
  • Agent-first architecture for repository-level code work, tool use, and enterprise workflows
  • Focus areas include Indic language support, cybersecurity, AI safety, and on-premise or air-gapped deployments

Deployable clinical AI

ApneaEye

A contact-free sleep apnea screening system that uses low-cost thermal sensing to move clinical AI beyond specialized sleep labs.

  • Single thermal camera and Raspberry Pi hardware below Rs 25,000
  • 535 hours of synchronized thermal and PSG data from 70 participants with AIIMS Delhi
  • AHI estimation at R2 = 0.95 and MAE 2.22 events/hour against PSG

Research directions

Significant areas of advancement

The document identifies long-horizon research efforts where the department can build distinctive depth across theory, systems, AI, and human-centered computing.

Quantum algorithms

Identify problems where quantum systems offer provable advantages, including kernels, QNNs, QAOA/VQE, and group-theoretic complexity.

Secure systems and Rust OS

Develop an indigenous Rust-based ARMv8 operating system, network stack, testing pipeline, formal verification methods, and sandboxing support for mobile, edge, and IoT devices.

AI for visual arts and design

Use differentiable rendering, inverse design, and learning-based methods for shadow art, knots, scribble art, and anamorphic 3D forms.

Accessibility and assistive technology

Create culturally and linguistically inclusive AI for communication, adaptive learning, eye-gaze interfaces, and assistive interaction.

Education and capacity

Training students while growing the department

The academic plan combines regional capacity building with deliberate faculty growth, improved ratios, and stronger research output.

Foundational CS training

A program for students in Gujarat engineering colleges, combining two five-day IITGN bootcamps each semester with online modules.

  • Programming, data structures and algorithms, and discrete mathematics
  • Interactive lectures, problem-solving labs, coding contests, and peer learning
  • Teaching assistantships for IITGN PhD and master's students

Academic growth

Faculty expansion is planned to deepen coverage in systems, security, quantum technologies, AI, theory, and interdisciplinary computing.

  • Near-term goal: add four to five faculty members in priority areas
  • Decade goal: 35 to 40 core CSE faculty
  • Target faculty-student ratio: 1:10, aligned with MoE recommendations