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Delhi, 24 March 2026: UPES Dehradun, a leading multidisciplinary and research university, today announced that in collaboration with OpenAI, it has now become an ‘AI-First’ university. The institute will provide governed, equitable and measurable AI capability, designed to elevate outcomes across teaching, learning, research and student experience. UPES will deploy ChatGPT Edu on campus, to embed generative AI within the core institutional infrastructure and enable free access to all students, faculty, and staff members.
ChatGPT Edu is OpenAI’s education plan for responsible, university-wide deployment, with institutional admin controls and enterprise-grade security. Its deployment at UPES will transform the way AI is integrated across the learning ecosystem, etching a bold new direction for higher education institutions – by ensuring students build practical, discipline-specific AI capability as part of their everyday academic journey, giving them an edge in placements and new-age job opportunities.
This collaboration will bring to life a set of tangible, student and faculty-facing experiences at UPES:
The Flagship AI Tutor for every student, with program and semester-aligned teaching support designed around the syllabus and learning outcomes, including concept clarification, practice support, and multilingual help.
The Assessment-proof learning approaches that support academic integrity and ensure students can demonstrate genuine understanding even when AI is used.
The Student Services Module will enhance student journeys by providing policy-awareness, step-by-step guidance and routing important cases to be solved and supported through human intervention as per the escalation pathways.
The Responsible AI Charter will anchor acceptable use, privacy and data handling expectations, ensuring trust, accountability and consistent practice across the university.
Access to deep research models for students and faculty that allow deeper inquiry, stronger academic and knowledge outcomes, along with exploration of deeper research supported by advanced credits.
Sharing his thoughts on this strategic collaboration, Dr. Sunil Rai, Vice Chancellor, UPES, said, "We are excited to be one of the pioneering Indian universities to commit to a governed, campus-wide GenAI deployment at this scale—treating AI as core academic and service infrastructure, not a series of experiments. We are purposefully architecting an AI-first university where AI is woven into the very fabric of learning, teaching, research, and student life. AI literacy will be the default foundation for every student, every faculty member, and every campus process from day one.”
Raghav Gupta, Head of Education - India and Asia-Pacific, OpenAI said, “India already has the largest student community on ChatGPT. As the depth with which AI tools are used evolves, they will become integrated into everyday learning. This effort by UPES leans into that and will make AI a core part of the academic experience, in turn shaping job readiness in an AI-driven world."
For students, learning will become more personalised, with real-time support, translation and feedback. They will build practical AI fluency from day one. In addition, they will be trained to apply AI within their respective domains—so they graduate with stronger, job-ready capability and improved employability in an AI-driven workplace. For faculty, AI will take the load off routine tasks and give them more time for what matters—mentoring, discussion and deeper learning. For researchers, AI will speed up synthesising literature, organising information and supporting analysis, helping teams move faster from ideas to credible outputs, while keeping rigour, integrity and human judgement at the centre.
Significantly, UPES is not merely adopting future-first technologies; it is setting a new benchmark in Indian education. For more information, please visit: www.upes.ac.in
Established through the UPES Act, 2003, of the State Legislature of Uttarakhand, UPES is a top-ranked, UGC-recognised, private university. As per the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) 2025, the Ministry of Education, Government of India, UPES has been ranked 45 among universities, with a rank of 18 in Law, 36 in Management, and a rank of 43 in Engineering. As per the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings 2026, UPES now stands in the 501-600 band globally and 5th in India, improving from 7th in 2025. Notably, in Research Quality, UPES jumped 57 positions in just one year to be ranked 299 globally. In addition to this, the university has been ranked the No.1 private university in academic reputation in India by the QS World University Rankings 2026. It is among the top 2% of universities in the world.
UPES has received 5 stars on Employability (placements) by the globally acclaimed QS Rating. The university has had 100% placements over the last five years. 50+ faculty members from UPES feature among the world’s top 2% researchers as per the Stanford University list.
UPES offers graduate and postgraduate programs through its seven schools: School of Advanced Engineering, School of Computer Science, School of Design, School of Law, School of Business, School of Health Sciences & Technology, and School of Liberal Studies and Humanities. The UPES family includes 19100+ students, 1,500+ faculty and staff members, and a thriving community of 40000+ alumni that work across sectors in marquee brands like EY, KPMG, Bain and Co., McKinsey & Company, Capgemini, Google, Microsoft, Oracle, Nestle, ITC, Adani Power, ONGC, GMR, TCS, Wipro, Infosys, Amazon, Flipkart, Accenture, Deloitte and more.
