AICTE Partners with OpenAI to Provide 150,000 Free ChatGPT Go Licenses for Students and Faculty

The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has made a historic step to promote learning and adoption of AI in India as it has partnered with OpenAI to give 150,000 free ChatGPT Go licences to students and faculty at AICTE (affiliated public institutions throughout India). This  initiative announced in September of 2025, focuses on improving digital skills and increasing employability and practical application of AI technologies in higher education.

Details of the Partnership

The ChatGPT Go licences are to be acknowledged under the memorandum of understanding (MoU), which proposes the rights to use sophisticated AI tools allowing users to learn, conduct research, and innovate within a six-month period. The deployment is planned mainly in technical institutes with special emphasis to Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities to make it more accessible and available to larger communities than the metropolitan locations.

Prof. T.G. Sitharam, Chairman of AICTE, said,“Artificial Intelligence is not just transforming technology, it is redefining how we prepare India’s technical workforce. This partnership with OpenAI democratizes access to advanced AI tools, enabling students and faculty to gain hands-on experience and develop industry-relevant skills.”

OpenAI is also assisting with the OpenAI Academy and special training programmes like Train-the-Trainer, assisting teachers to make meaningful use of AI in curriculum teaching and research.

Open AI’s India Learning Accelerator

It is an extension of OpenAI and its India Learning Accelerator programme, which dedicates more than half a million ChatGPT licences to Indian educational institutions in the next six months. OpenedAI, in joint partnership with AICTE, works with the Ministry of Education to provide ChatGPT access to thousands of government school educators in grades 1 through 12, pushing AI literacy down to the grassroots.

In addition, OpenAI has put up 500,000 dollars (equivalent to 4.41 crores Indian rupee) in a research partnership with the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) to investigate how AI influences learning outcomes and novel methods of teaching, in line with what cognitive neuroscience teaches us.

Expected Impact on Education and Employability

• This collaboration will help in a big way improve the quality of technical education by:
• Giving realistic exposure to generative AI tools such as ChatGPT in solving problems, creating code, researching, and creating.
• Fostering innovation in the teaching and learning processes through integration of AI tools with traditional teaching.
• Building digital literacy and employability in young people of India, equipping them to fit future workforce needs informed by AI technologies.

Raghav Gupta, the Head of Education in India and Asia-Pacific at OpenAI, said, India is one of the lighthouses of AI-powered education globally, and we can hardly wait to work with Indian educators and organisations to really change education with AI.

How to Access the Licenses?

Institutions that are affiliated with AICTE will be used to distribute and use the licence among its students and faculty. Training and awareness campaigns will help to fully utilise the licences and a capture of learning outcomes to improve them further. 

In conclusion, the collaboration is a significant milestone toward AI democratisation and education transformation in India and can bring advanced AI tools to thousands of learners and educators, driving innovation and digital age employability.