Tech giant Microsoft announced its collaboration with the All India Council For Technical Education (AICTE) on Monday. This move is aimed at helping students and educators build skills in new-age technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), data science and cloud computing.
What the decision for AICTE to collaborate with Microsoft covers
The terms were set out in a Microsoft India news release dated New Delhi, 12 October 2020. The arrangement for AICTE to collaborate with Microsoft has three strands: Microsoft Learn, the company’s online training platform, built into ELIS, AICTE’s free e-learning portal; Microsoft Learn for Educators, for teaching staff; and Azure for Students, the company’s cloud offer for students. The release did not describe a formal memorandum of understanding and gave no end date for the arrangement.
The potential audience is large. The release described AICTE as the national regulatory council for technical education, which approves programmes at more than 10,000 Indian institutions under its charter, and said those institutions have over 7.5 million students and 2.5 million faculty between them. Anant Maheshwari, then president of Microsoft India, said in the release that the collaboration reflected the company’s commitment to building a strong skilling ecosystem in the country, and Prof. Anil Sahasrabudhe, then chairman of AICTE, said that upskilling was very important to improve employability opportunities for students.
As part of the collaboration, over 1,500-course modules from Microsoft will be made available to students and educators free of cost through AICTE’s e-learning portal ELIS, as per a statement. Microsoft’s learning resource centre Microsoft Learn has been integrated with the ELIS platform to enable access to personalised learning resources for students, covering a variety of technologies like AI, IoT, data science and cloud computing, among others, it added.
The collaboration will also provide educators access to online learning paths and instructor-led training material through the Microsoft Learn for Educators platform. Eligible educators and faculty members will be able to access Microsoft’s ready-to-teach curriculum and teaching materials designed with industry-recognised Microsoft certifications, it said.
The collaboration with All India Council For Technical Education (AICTE) is part of Microsoft’s commitment to building a strong skilling ecosystem in India and ensure continuity in learning, as per Microsoft India President Anant Maheshwari. “COVID-19 has accelerated the need for upskilling and has shown clearly that the future of learning will be profoundly personalised and supported by technology,” he added. He said Microsoft was committed to helping learners and educators across the country build skills in emerging technologies and to working with them towards a digital future.
Anil Sahasrabudhe, Chairman of AICTE, mentioned the importance of upskilling to enhance employability opportunities for students.
“AICTE is happy to partner with Microsoft to help students get an opportunity to be hands-on with the latest technology and build products and services for the future,” he added.
Through this partnership, students will also get an opportunity to gain hands-on technology exposure with Azure for Students. Eligible students aged 18 and above will be able to build apps, explore AI, and make the most of big data with access to more than 25 free Azure services along with USD 100 in Azure credit, renewable annually.
To make learning more interactive, Microsoft will also host live webinars on next-generation technologies for students of AICTE. To ensure technology benefits, everyone, Microsoft will sponsor 1,000 Microsoft Certification Exam Vouchers spanning different technologies for students from underserved communities.
Since then: AICTE and Microsoft sign an MoU in 2023
Three years later the relationship was put on a formal footing. The Ministry of Education, AICTE and Microsoft signed a memorandum of understanding in New Delhi on 25 September 2023 to build skills and job readiness among students and educators at AICTE and its partner institutions in artificial intelligence, cloud, data science, data analytics and security, according to a Microsoft India release on the signing. The Union Education Minister, Dharmendra Pradhan, attended, along with the AICTE chairman, Prof. T.G. Sitharam, and Sahasrabudhe, who by then chaired the National Educational Technology Forum, NAAC and the NBA.
Under the 2023 agreement, Microsoft said it would integrate Microsoft Learn into AICTE’s curriculum, give students exposure to the Azure Developer Community in India for industry insight and mentoring, provide Azure handbooks for projects in sectors such as manufacturing, retail, healthcare and education, and offer its Future Ready Talent Program, run with AICTE, FutureSkills Prime, EY, GitHub and Quess Corp. That programme had reached more than 100,000 students by June 2022, and more than 3,400 students had completed internships through it, the release said.
Sitharam said AICTE was focused on creating opportunities for students in new technologies and that the partnership would help equip students and educators with digital skills. “Today’s youth is key to India’s inclusive economic growth, now and in the future,” said Venkat Krishnan, executive director for the public sector, education and healthcare at Microsoft India. The second agreement for AICTE to collaborate with Microsoft moved the relationship from free course access towards the curriculum itself.
Since then: the student and teacher offers today
The individual offers named in 2020 are still running, on terms that have changed. As of October 2026, Microsoft’s Azure for Students page offers USD 100 of credit to use on Azure services within 12 months, with no credit card required, and lets students renew the subscription each year for as long as they remain students. The page describes the offer as available only to full-time university students and does not mention the age limit of 18 cited in 2020. It includes free monthly amounts of more than 20 popular services for 12 months for new Azure customers, and more than 65 services that are always free.
The educator programme continues as well. Faculty who join Microsoft Learn for Educators get ready-to-teach courseware, faculty notes, lab environments, official courseware, practice assessments and certification vouchers, according to the programme’s page on Microsoft Learn, which now puts AI skills alongside data and security at the centre of the offer and lists AI bootcamps run with technical service providers. Taken together, the 2020 decision for AICTE to collaborate with Microsoft and the 2023 agreement mean that the same Microsoft Learn platform first offered through ELIS is now, on Microsoft’s account, to be built into the council’s curriculum.
