Divya Agarwal
Gandhinagar (Gujarat) [India], August 31: The Residential PG Diploma in AI-ML & Agentic AI Engineering, offered by IIT Gandhinagar, is the first postgraduate AI program in the country to be delivered fully on campus rather than online. Students live and study at the institute for the full 5.5-month duration, rather than logging into weekend lectures from home.
For its upcoming cohort, the program has curated its curriculum specifically around Forward Deployed Engineering, a role focused on embedding AI specialists inside client organisations to build and ship agentic systems into live production, rather than developing models in isolation.
The timing tracks a broader shift in AI hiring. Globally, postings for Forward Deployed Engineer roles have grown 729%year-on-year as of mid-2026, according to Indeed job-posting data reported by industry trackers including The New Stack and MarkTechPost. Salaries for the role now range from roughly $170,000 to over $400,000 in the US, with OpenAI, Anthropic and Google among the most active hirers.
Our engagements with industry leaders clearly indicated to us that they are increasingly pivoting to the FDE role,” said Prof. Sam Placid, CEO, Competency Advancement Academy (CAA), IIT Gandhinagar. “In keeping with our stated objective of aligning our curriculum with industry needs, we have tweaked our curriculum to address this requirement.”
The program is administered through the Competency Advancement Academy (CAA) at IIT Gandhinagar. Admission is through AINPT (All India National Proficiency Test), a proprietary exam and panel interview that does not require JEE or GATE. Seats are limited. Students live on the institute’s 400-acre campus on the Sabarmati, complete over 500 hours of structured coursework, and build 15 to 20 deployed projects over the course of the program. Graduates receive a PG Diploma from IIT Gandhinagar along with Alumni status.
The new cohort begins in September 2026.
About the program: The Residential PG Diploma in AI-ML & Agentic AI Engineering is offered by IIT Gandhinagar through the Competency Advancement Academy (CAA).
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