IIT Madras launches 5 free online courses on AI on SWAYAM Plus

NEW DELHI: Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) has unveiled five free courses for students, faculty, and working professionals on Artificial Intelligence (AI) through its SWAYAM Plus portal. Eligible candidates can apply for the online courses by May 12, 2025 through the official website at swayam-plus.swayam2.ac.in.

The technology institute has launched the free courses with an aim to make AI accessible across various fields such as arts, science, commerce and many more, IIT Madras said. The free courses include AI in Physics, AI in Chemistry, Cricket Analytics with AI, and AI and ML using Python.

R Sarathi, dean (planning), IIT Madras and SWAYAM Plus coordinator, IIT Madras, said: “These Courses, which are aligned to the National Credit Framework (NCrF), can be taken by Higher Education Institutions as a credit program for the upcoming academic calendar as well. These courses aim to make AI accessible across disciplines – not only to engineering students but also to those from arts, science, commerce, and other fields.”

The duration for each course will be from 25 to 45 hours and it's an online course. These free AI courses are also aligned with the National Credit Framework (NCrF) and employability-focused hands-on activities, real datasets, and case study-based learning certification option “with a nominal fee university can opt to give credit as part of skill development,” it added.

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IIT Madras’s Free AI Courses: Eligibility

Candidates with undergraduate and postgraduate degrees from all academic backgrounds, including engineering, commerce, arts, interdisciplinary are eligible to take the free courses.

Besides, faculty members from higher education institutes can also study the free courses. No prior experience in AI or coding is required to start the courses and these are curated by experts from the IIT Madras ecosystem, drawing on deep academic and industry experience, the institute said.

About the free courses

Candidates can have an understanding about the five free courses on AI through the points given below.

• AI in Physics: Registered participants will be taught the uses of AI tools such as machine learning and neural networks in solving real-world physics problems. It includes “hands-on” labs and interactive applications across fundamental concepts of physics.
• AI in Chemistry: This comprises molecular predictions to modeling chemical reactions with the help of real-world dataset and Python.
• AI in Accounting: Here, candidates will be learning about accounting principles with AI applications. It includes practical use of Python and datasets that will help to explore automation in accounting.
• Cricket analytics with AI: It will teach about sports analytics using Python and data science concepts. Students learn to analyse real-life cricket data through case studies and visualisation techniques.
• AI, ML using Python: This comes with foundation course in AI and ML, including Python programming, statistics, linear algebra, optimisation, and data visualisation for real-world problem solving.