MARCH OF MAXIMUM CITY

As AI accelerates, nations are scrambling to harness and regulate it. As India charts its own path, Mumbai with its financial clout, booming data market, and thriving tech-academia scene-is fast emerging as the country's AI capital

- NAVIN J. ANTONY

It is a fantastic time to learn, said Prof Raghavan B. Sunoj. So fantastic, even machines were learning.

We were at IIT Bombay's KRESIT building-its grand atrium, vaulted ceiling and Penrose-like stairs mirroring the unusual name. Odd, yet functional.

I first met Sunoj in his chemistry department office, at one end of the institute's "infinity corridor"-a half-kilometre passage linking academic departments and symbolising IIT Bombay's transdisciplinary ethos. Since KRESIT, home to the computer science and engineering (CSE) department, lay outside this corridor, he led the way. He wanted to introduce me to someone.

Lean and energetic in his fifties, Sunoj has spent 21 years at IIT Bombay.

His commitment to students-staying up late in hostels and mess halls to help them-earned him the nickname "the Night Professor". In 2023, it also won him the National Teacher Award from President Droupadi Murmu. A computational chemist, he used mathematical models to solve chemical problems. Six years ago, curiosity led him to artificial intelligence.

"I found many parallels between my field and AI," he said. "I love mathematics, and as a computational chemist, I had a bird's eye view of diverse concepts-maths, statistics, probability, linear algebra-all converging in AI. Fascinating!"

As we walked through KRESIT, Sunoj recounted how he learned AI through Stanford's online courses.

Stanford mathematician John McCarthy had coined the term 'artificial intelligence' in the 1950s, transforming an obscure discipline-"automata studies"-into a serious research area. The courses made Sunoj fluent enough to engage in deep discussions with his KRESIT colleagues over tea.