Dayananda Sagar University collaborates with NVIDIA to build India’s first Academic AI Factory

Dayananda Sagar University has joined hands with NVIDIA to build India’s first Academic AI Factory. The university shared the news at the AI Summit in Delhi. Through this step, DSU plans to move past classroom theory and push students to design and test real AI tools. The team wants students to create technology that tackles everyday challenges, not just study it.

Dayananda Sagar University (DSU) has made a historic partnership with NVIDIA to set up the first Academic AI Factory in India, marking a paradigm shift in higher education from learning about AI to actually developing it. This was announced at the AI Summit in Delhi, placing the university at the cutting edge of innovative AI research in academia.

This is a significant move forward from the usual AI education offered. Instead of just teaching students how to use AI, the university wants to equip them with the ability to develop intelligent systems that can solve real-world problems.

Production-Grade AI Infrastructure

At the heart of the AI Factory is a high-performance computing cluster consisting of 20 NVIDIA Blackwell nodes, providing a total of 160 GPUs. Each GPU provides up to 20 petaflops of FP4 performance, which is sufficient for large-scale model training and cutting-edge AI research. This degree of computing power puts DSU among the top academic institutions in the country with the most advanced AI computing capabilities.

The computing cluster is scheduled to be completed by June 2026 and will serve as the “central brain” of the AI environment at DSU. It will allow students and researchers to graduate from using AI through prompts and build their own large language models, including the DSU GPT model.

Building a Complete AI Innovation Ecosystem

However, aside from the processing power, DSU is building an innovation ecosystem around the AI Factory to ensure that research is converted into tangible impact.

The university intends to set up an AI Maker Space that is fully integrated with electronics and mechanical labs, closing the gap between algorithms and physical machines. A cyber range of a large scale will be created to provide a real-world environment for cyber defence research and advanced training, developed collaboratively with Cyix and Cyberbit.

The infrastructure will also enable the development of AR/VR platforms and a Digital Twin Centre, developed in collaboration with DOS Systems, to provide virtual modelling for urban and healthcare domains. Additionally, advanced robotics labs on CUDA platforms will enable the development of humanoids and autonomous systems by integrating mechanical engineering with AI.

Interdisciplinary Access and Democratisation of AI

The AI Factory at DSU is intended for the larger academic community of close to 40,000 students in various fields such as engineering, law, medicine, management, health sciences, journalism, and design. The project has been launched to shatter the conventional academic silos by combining AI with cyber defence, healthcare diagnostics, mechanical systems, and immersive technologies.

The university also intends to train more than 20,000 students in new job streams such as MLOps, AI product architecture, and generative AI development to make the workforce ready for next-generation technology jobs.

Through the provision of high-performance computing to the entire institution, DSU intends to democratize AI innovation and ensure that the best research infrastructure is not confined to a few technology hotspots around the world.

Focus on Real-World Impact

The AI Factory will enable solutions for challenges that are relevant to the Global South. The planned areas of focus include healthcare diagnostics, climate-resilient infrastructure, and net-zero projects in partnership with industry partners such as Siemens.

The university administration was keen to point out that India is moving from being a part of the AI revolution to being a builder of intelligent technologies. This project also marks the importance of Tier-2 universities in the innovation space. 

Looking Ahead

The official launch of DSU’s Academic AI Factory is planned for mid-2026. Once launched, the project will help students develop solutions that are relevant to the Global South while also contributing to global technological advancements.

With this project, Dayananda Sagar University aims to create an ecosystem where young innovators can leverage advanced computing power, collaboration, and research-based learning to build the future of artificial intelligence in India and the world.

Note: The views expressed in this article are that of the Dayananda Sagar University and do not reflect/represent those of Shiksha