New Delhi, Sep 4 : India's prestigious Indian Institute of Technology is steadily spreading its wings to become the new export from India. In less than a year of opening its first offshore campus in Tanzania's Zanzibar, the institute this week opened its second in Abu Dhabi, UAE.

While the Zanzibar campus was part of IIT Madras, the new campus in Abu Dhabi is part of IIT Delhi, and was officially inaugurated by Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi.

The campus' first batch consists of 52 undergraduate students selected through the JEE Advanced exam and the newly established Combined Admission Entrance Test (CAET) for international candidates.

The undergraduate group will pursue BTech degrees in Computer Science and Engineering and Energy Engineering.

'IIT Delhi is honoured to have the esteemed presence of HH Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan at the inauguration of IIT Delhi Abu Dhabi campus and launch of strategic partnerships with HEIs in the emirate,' said Dharmendra Pradhan, Union Minister of Education, in a post on social media platform X.

The new campus is part of a collaboration between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, signed over two years ago in February 2022.

The Vision Document launched by Prime PM Modi and the UAE President outlines a roadmap for expanding the India-UAE relationship into new collaborative areas.

'IIT Delhi-Abu Dhabi campus, an edifice of India-UAE friendship, unites our two countries together for leveraging the power of knowledge, science and technology for mutual and global prosperity,' Pradhan said.

IIT Delhi Abu Dhabi also offers a Master of Technology (MTech) programme in Energy Transition and Sustainability.

The premier institute opened its first offshore campus in Zanzibar, with a cohort including 50 students, in November 2023. The institute offers two full-time academic programmes -- a four-year Bachelor of Science in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence and a two-year Master of Technology in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence. In May, the campus also launched a new MTech programme in Ocean Structures for the academic year 2024-25.

More offshore IIT campuses are reportedly in the pipeline -- in Nepal, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Malaysia, and the UK.

The offshore campuses are part of the central government's plan to 'internationalise' education as discussed in the new National Education Policy (NEP) of India 2020.

In 2022, the Ministry of Education also set up a 16-member committee to explore possibilities for Indian universities to set up foreign campuses.

More recently, PM Modi in his address to the nation on Independence Day said his government aims to 'build such an education system in India that youngsters do not need to go abroad to study".

"In fact, we would want foreign students to come here and study,' the PM said.

IITs are one of the most prestigious institutes of engineering in India. Its alumni include famous names like Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, noted economist and former RBI chief Raghuram Rajan, Flipkart founder Sachin Bansal, and Infosys founder Narayana Murthy, among others.

IITs also topped the list of the recently released National Institutional Ranking Framework rankings. IIT-Madras topped the list and was followed by IIT-Delhi and IIT-Bombay.

/IANS