- The centre will join BT’s network of collaborative research facilities around the globe.
- It will complement BT’s existing relationship with the Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology, Delhi
UK-based telecom giant BT and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) on Thursday kicked off a new phase of UK-India joint research with the opening of a new collaborative research centre in Bengaluru.
The centre will focus on the development of the next generation of cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI), mobility and software engineering technologies.
The new BT India Research Centre (BTIRC) will join BT’s network of collaborative research facilities around the globe, including centres in Northern Ireland, China, the US and the UAE. This global innovation network is centred on the BT Labs at Adastral Park, Suffolk, UK, one of the world’s leading centres for telecommunications research.
“The opening of this new centre is the start of an exciting new chapter for BT, and for UK-India research,” said Professor Tim Whitley, Managing Director for Research at BT.
“The technologies we’ll be developing here, in fields such as AI, mobile and software engineering will accelerate the delivery of exciting innovations to our customers around the globe, taking advantage of the brilliant intellectual capital in Bengaluru,” he added.
The BTIRC will operate multiple research tracks, focused primarily on artificial intelligence, mobility and software engineering technologies for use in BT’s strategic programmes, products and services. Future areas will include cybersecurity innovations.
Professor Anurag Kumar, Director IISc, commented, “The proposed research topics of mobility and artificial intelligence, with the associated software engineering, are sure to attract strong interest from the IISc faculty and students.”
Strengthening Industry- academia partnership
BT is one of the global research leaders in communications technologies and AI, filing the highest number of AI-focused patents amongst all UK companies with the UK patent office over the last 20 years.
The new BT India Research Centre will build on these strong credentials, following a well-established model used for the company’s other global research locations, combining academic, industry and government partnerships and BT’s own commercial and research expertise.
British Deputy High Commissioner to Bengaluru, Dominic McAllister, said, “The launch of the BT India Research Centre underlines the value of strengthening collaboration between the private sector and academic institutions to push the boundaries of innovation in critical areas of technology.”
BT has a long history of working with leading Indian universities on the development of new technologies and is a significant employer of highly skilled IT and technology experts in Bengaluru and other locations across India including Gurugram, where the company opened a cutting-edge cyber-security centre in 2018.
The BTIRC will also complement BT’s existing relationship with the Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology, Delhi, which is focused on elastic optical networks and quantum key distribution technologies.
