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₹2,200-crore expansion on anvil: BITS Pilani chancellor
Birla was addressing the 2025 convocation ceremony at BITS Pilani, where 17,041 students received their degrees in the presence of former chief justice of India DY Chandrachud as chief guest
Aditya Birla Group chairman and Birla Institute of Technology & Science (BITS) Pilani chancellor Kumar Mangalam Birla on Sunday announced major expansion plans for the prestigious educational institution, aimed at increasing the capacity of its Indian campuses, embracing artificial intelligence (AI), and foraying into the ed-tech space.
Birla was addressing the 2025 convocation ceremony at BITS Pilani, where 17,041 students received their degrees in the presence of former chief justice of India DY Chandrachud as chief guest. The billionaire businessman unveiled three initiatives for the institution’s expansion with an investment of over ₹2,200 crore.
The multi-pronged initiatives include setting up of a state-of-the-art AI+ campus at Amaravati in Andhra Pradesh with an investment of ₹1,000 crore, a ₹1,219-crore investment to expand and modernise the institution’s three existing Indian campuses at Pilani, Goa and Hyderabad under ‘project vistaar’, and the launch of BITS Pilani Digital — the institute’s dedicated EdTech platform — with an investment of ₹35 crore.
The proposed AI+ campus at Amaravati will be spread across 35 acres and offer undergraduate twinning programmes, cotutelle doctoral degrees with top global institutions, and master’s programmes in artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML), innovation, and strategy.
Undergraduate twinning programmes enable students to split their four-year degree programme between an Indian institution and a foreign partner university, earning a degree from the foreign institution, while a cotutelle doctoral degree involves joint supervision by two universities in different countries, with students meeting both institutions’ requirements to receive two doctoral degrees acknowledging the collaboration.
“The focus of this campus will be to prepare Indian talent for leadership in the defining technologies of our time. This future-ready campus will specialise in AI, data science, robotics, computational linguistics, and cyber-physical systems. The undergraduate, postgraduate, and doctoral programmes have been designed with global best practices in mind offering industry internships, joint PhDs with top international universities, and hybrid twinning models that give students true international exposure,” Birla said.
The campus in Amaravati — the premium institute’s fourth Indian campus — will be developed in two phases. While phase 1 will accommodate 3,000 students with a focus on core academics and student life, phase 2 will expand to over 7,000 students, incorporating advanced research centres, global collaboration zones, and entrepreneurship hubs, using sustainable, modular infrastructure for scalability.
BITS Pilani vice-chancellor Prof V Ramgopal Rao said that the Amravati campus will become operational in 2027.
Terming ‘project vistaar’, with an investment of ₹1,219 crore, as the institute’s “most ambitious physical expansions in its history,” Birla said the vision of the project is “to deliver new academic blocks, cutting-edge research facilities, student hostels, faculty residences, and a broad range of amenities to accelerate the creation of a truly holistic, future-ready learning environment”.
“This investment will enable next-generation programs aligned with emerging global needs and the strengthening of advanced research partnerships with industry and academia worldwide,” he said.
Through this initiative which also includes ₹60 crore for upgrading undergraduate laboratories to world-class standards, BITS Pilani is aiming to expand the student capacity at its three existing Indian campuses to 21,000 from the current 16,000 over the next five years.
Established in 1964, BITS Pilani also has a foreign campus in Dubai.
Through BITS Pilani Digital, the institute will launch 32 programmes — 11 degree and 21 certificate courses — serving over 100,000 learners from high-school graduates to college students and working professionals.
“BITS Pilani Digital is about democratising access and fulfilling a national mission. This initiative aligns directly with India’s National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, which calls for the expansion of digital learning and lifelong skilling,” Birla said.
“While expanding campuses is vital, India’s education challenge also demands scale, flexibility, and inclusivity. India is one of the world’s youngest nations. Nearly 65% of our population is under 35, but the stark reality is that too many of our bright, ambitious minds still lack access to the kind of high- quality, flexible education that transforms lives. BITS Pilani Digital is our response. It is not merely an EdTech platform but an extension of BITS Pilani’s spirit of excellence and innovation into the homes, and communities of learners,” he added.
Professor Rao said that infrastructure is being developed at a central place in Bengaluru for holding the online classes for the courses. “The fee of the courses offered by BITS Pilani Digital will be affordable so that more students can take advantage of them. BITS Pilani Digital will become operational from next month,” the VC said.
A total of 17,014 students were awarded degrees at the convocation ceremony. The institute also achieved a record 268 PhD conferrals, the highest in its history.
Addressing the graduating students, former CJI Chandrachud appealed to them to ensure their engineering and scientific innovations promote justice, dignity, and opportunity for the marginalised.
“As you leave this campus, remember that the true measure of your engineering and scientific achievements is not their complexity, but whether they extend justice, dignity, and opportunity to those long pushed to the margins. We who build technology now shoulder a dual responsibility: to innovate boldly and to communicate clearly, so every citizen can understand and help shape the tools that govern their lives,” the former CJI said. “Let empathy temper every algorithm, humility guide every discovery, and the values of our Constitution light your path as you turn possibility into public good.”
