The Indian analytics and artificial intelligence industry seems to be getting exactly what they were hoping and praying for — fresh new talent.

In an exciting development, 74 offers were made to the batch of 51 students of the joint post graduate diploma in business analytics (PGDBA) programme of IIT Kharagpur, IIM-C and ISI of Kolkata during the final placement process.

According to a statement released by Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur on Tuesday, the highest domestic offer was for ₹41.4 lakh per annum and was made by an Indian telecom company. The highest international offer on the other hand, was a package of ₹47.02 lakh per annum, offered by a German research giant.

Barclays Capital, DE Shaw and Aditya Birla Capital from BFSI sector, PWC from consulting sector, United Health Group and Novartis from healthcare, Johnson and Johnson and ITC from FMCG, Reliance Jio from telecom and Piramal Group from diversified conglomerate sector were some of the major recruiters, said the statement.

Debapriyo Majumdar, faculty and placement convener at ISI, Kolkata said, “Such an overwhelming response from the industry will serve to spread the popularity of the course.”

The overwhelming response to the PGDBA programme is a direct result of the shift that is being seen in the industry — especially with respect to adoption of analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning, among others.

More and more companies are adopting artificial intelligence in their ecosystems in order to achieve business efficiency and revenue augmentation. In fact, according to a recent report by Intel India, undertaken by the International Data Corporation (IDC), nearly 75 percent firms anticipate benefits in business process efficiency and employee productivity with the use of AI. The report also suggested an impending lack of skilled talent in the AI sector.

For the first time in India, the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has given up to 20 credits for new tech subjects like AI, IoT, ML and robotics. This new move by AICTE is being hailed by everyone as the students are hoping to get better placements, and employers are expecting to hire more industry-relevant workforce.

In December 2017, the AICTE had revised the curriculum for the four year undergraduate (BTech) program. AI, robotics and IoT had been made mandatory from academic year 2018-19.