The Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT-M) on Friday launched a start-up to prepare the workforce for the advent of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) age by training students at nominal costs.

The start-up "PadhAI" offers an affordable hands-on course on 'Deep Learning' which is the most successful sub-field of AI. 

It is open to all students, faculty and professionals with a basic background in mathematics and Python. 

The fee for students and faculty is Rs 1,000 and for working professionals Rs 5,000. 

The start-up will also create AI-driven apps by collaborating with Small and Medium Enterprises and the industry and generate value for the Indian economy. 

"The Indian IT industry has gone through several waves of technology and survived by upskilling. The current wave of AI is very different. It requires both mathematical insight and hands-on experience," Mitesh Khapra, Assistant Professor at IIT-Madras, said in a statement. 

"We need courses that strike the right balance between these two. Only then will India be able to produce visible products and services in the AI age," he added.

Every year, the top performing students from courses on PadhAI will be invited to a summer garage -- an AI residency programme at IIT-M Research Park where they can work on research, tackle problems of societal impact, or find solutions to commercial value.

The four-month course comprises 80 hours of lecture content and requires equivalent time in solving assignments. It will involve monthly contests and a capstone challenge that trains participants to build an app that works like Google Lens for a few Indian languages.

The course will begin from February 1. Registrations for the course are open until January 24.