UPES Dehradun, a multidisciplinary and research university, on March 24 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.
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.
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.
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.
