IIT Kharagpur Takes Its AI Classroom to Texas: Houston's New Learning Centre Marks a Big Leap for Indo-US Education Ties

IIT Kharagpur has just planted its flag on American soil — quite literally.

IIT Kharagpur has just planted its flag on American soil — quite literally. The institute's outreach arm has inaugurated the Texas AI Learning Centre in Houston, a new hub built to bring artificial intelligence training, skill-building and industry problem-solving to alumni, professionals and global learners far beyond the Kharagpur campus.

The timing wasn't accidental. The launch coincided with two milestones worth celebrating together — India's 80th Independence Day and IIT Kharagpur's own 75th anniversary. The centre was jointly launched by India's Consul General in Houston, DC Manjunath, Tagore Centre Foundation co-founder and IIT Kharagpur Foundation President Dr Asoke Deysarkar, and IIT Kharagpur Director Prof. Suman Chakraborty at the Tagore Centre in Houston.

A Gift That Built the Foundation — Literally

Here's the part that didn't make most headlines: this centre exists because of a remarkably generous family gift. The Deysarkar family — Asoke, Ruma, their son Sayan, and Asoke's brother Samir — donated the Tagore Center property, valued at nearly USD 10 million, in Houston, which now forms the foundation of the IITKGP Outreach Centre in the US. It's the kind of alumni commitment that turns a proposal on paper into bricks, classrooms and a functioning campus abroad. 

Consul General Manjunath spoke about the deepening India–US tech partnership, pointing out that collaboration in AI is opening fresh doors for institutions to work together. He also acknowledged the year of groundwork that went into making the launch happen, and said he expects the facility to eventually grow into a full IIT Outreach Centre overseas.

More Than Just One Centre — A Pan-IIT Ambition

Prof. Chakraborty didn't stop at describing Houston as a standalone project. He framed it as the seed of something bigger: a Pan-IIT platform where alumni and global stakeholders from across the IIT ecosystem — not just Kharagpur — could access professional development courses and work together on tough, real-world industry problems.

This ambition tracks with what's already been happening on campus. IIT Kharagpur's Department of Artificial Intelligence, established in 2024, was built around a four-fold mission spanning research excellence, applied AI for industry problems, teaching and outreach, and AI-driven entrepreneurship. Just months before the Houston launch, in March 2026, the institute had already announced a School of Digital Learning and Applied AI — a research-centric initiative designed to redefine how artificial intelligence innovation is conceived, translated and deployed across sectors, backed by a philanthropic pledge of up to USD 5 million over five years from an alumnus. Houston, in other words, is the latest chapter in a much longer AI-outreach story IIT Kharagpur has been writing. 

Diaspora Turns Up in Force

US Consul General in Kolkata, Kathy Giles-Diaz, sent a video message praising the collaboration, while HCL Technologies co-founder and IIT alumnus Arjun Malhotra pledged his backing to help the centre expand further. True to form for an alumni-driven launch, the room was packed — IIT graduates, tech professionals, Indian diaspora leaders, and representatives from Harris County Commissioner Lesley Briones's office all showed up.

The centre didn't wait around to get to work either. It opened its doors with a two-day AI certificate bootcamp, coordinated by Texas A&M University professor Dr Debyajoti Banerjee — a fitting first move for a centre built entirely around hands-on, industry-relevant AI learning.

For an institute already sitting on three decades of AI research back home, Houston isn't just an outpost. It's IIT Kharagpur betting that its next big AI breakthroughs might just as easily come from a classroom in Texas as one in West Bengal.