IIIT Vadodara Admission Through GATE: M.Tech AI and Data Science at Gandhinagar

The name says Vadodara, but classes are not in Vadodara. The about page says the institute, set up in 2013 under the public-private partnership model, operates from temporary premises at Government Engineering College, Gandhinagar, until its new campus at Vadodara is ready. The Government of Gujarat has given 62.5 acres at Dumad, Vadodara, and an academic block at GEC Gandhinagar. The FAQ page gives the address as Block No. 9, Government Engineering College, Sector-28, Gandhinagar, and says the permanent campus is being developed at Gujarat Knowledge City, Dumad. The PIN on the site footer is 382028.

The partners are the Government of India, the Government of Gujarat, Gujarat Energy Research and Management Institute, Gujarat State Fertilizers and Chemicals and Tata Consultancy Services.

IIIT Vadodara also has a second campus. The International Campus Diu (IIITV-ICD) at the Education Hub, Kevdi, Diu, is a satellite campus whose graduates get IIIT Vadodara degrees. The FAQ says admissions are run separately for the two campuses with their own seat matrices, and CCMT lists them as two institutes. This page is about Gandhinagar. Diu offers an M.Tech in Artificial Intelligence through CCMT as well, so check which campus you are choosing when you fill your CCMT list.

The M.Tech 2026-27 page lists two computer science programmes, Artificial Intelligence and Data Science, and two electronics programmes, VLSI/Chip Design and Machine Learning, and AI and Communication. The CSE M.Tech is built on advanced coursework with projects, and students who want a research career can take a year of thesis work in place of projects. The first semester lays the foundations.

Per the departments page, the CSE department runs the M.Tech in CSE (Data Science/AI) alongside B.Tech, MCA and online B.Sc. programmes, with emphasis on AI, cybersecurity, data science and computer vision. The ECE department runs the two ECE specialisations; the AI and Communication track covers AI/ML, signal processing, wireless systems and 5G/6G topics.

The 2026-27 seat matrix on the same page splits each Gandhinagar programme across four channels:

Programme (Gandhinagar)	CCMT	Institute Round	Study in India	DASA
M.Tech CSE (AI)	20	20	2	6
M.Tech CSE (DS)	15	15	2	5
M.Tech ECE (VLSI & ML)	15	15	1	4
M.Tech ECE (AI & Communications)	15	15	2	5

The Diu campus has CSE (AI) only, with 15 CCMT and 15 Institute Round seats.

This is where IIIT Vadodara differs from most CCMT institutes. In the CCMT 2026 seat mapping, all four Gandhinagar programmes sat in a single Group 1 open to all 30 GATE papers, DA and CS included. The qualifying degrees were broad too: a B.E./B.Tech in any discipline, a 4-year B.S. in any discipline, MCA, or an M.Sc. in any discipline (for AI and Communication the M.Sc. entry was an integrated M.Sc. in any discipline).

For a DA aspirant with a civil, mechanical or chemical B.Tech, this means the Data Science and Artificial Intelligence programmes were both open in 2026. A CS candidate could also list the ECE programmes, since CS was mapped there as well. The flip side is that you compete with every paper for the same seats, and CCMT ranks all of them by GATE score.

CCMT redoes this mapping each year, so check the 2027 table before you fill choices. For preparation, see the GATE DA page, the DA guide for 2027 and the GATE CSE page.

The CCMT 2026 report prints the maximum and minimum GATE score of allotted candidates by round and category. These rows are for the Gandhinagar campus only, exactly as printed, Round 1 and the last round in which each category had a row.

Data Science

Category	Round 1 max	Round 1 min	Last round with a row	Max	Min
OPEN	554	520	National Spot Round	440	411
EWS	491	479	National Spot Round	346	331
OBC-NCL	496	484	National Spot Round	358	346
SC	414	389	National Spot Round	305	305
ST	274	274	Round 3	263	263

Artificial Intelligence

Category	Round 1 max	Round 1 min	Last round with a row	Max	Min
OPEN	608	556	National Spot Round	449	418
EWS	538	504	National Spot Round	362	349
OBC-NCL	504	498	National Spot Round	388	359
SC	379	377	National Spot Round	327	301
ST	273	271	Special Round 1	244	244

Scores are out of 1000 and not split by paper. In Round 1 Artificial Intelligence closed higher than Data Science for OPEN, EWS and OBC-NCL, but lower for SC. By the National Spot Round the OPEN minimum had fallen to 418 (AI) and 411 (Data Science). The report prints the group as "G1" in Round 1 and "Group 1" afterwards. The Diu campus has its own separate rows, which are not used here.

IIIT Vadodara keeps half of each programme's M.Tech seats for an Institute Round (non-CCMT), and after CCMT it runs a spot round for vacant seats. The PG admissions page for AY 2026-27 set the eligibility at 6.5 CPI/CGPA in B.E./B.Tech./MCA/M.Sc. for GEN/EWS/OBC and 6.0 for SC/ST/PwD, and says plainly that GATE is not mandatory. The application fee was Rs. 590; you fill an online form, then sign the pages and email them to pgadmissions@iiitvadodara.ac.in.

The August 2026 spot round listed these vacant seats: CSE (AI) at Gandhinagar 4, CSE (DS) at Gandhinagar 8, ECE (AI & Com) 23, ECE (VLSI & ML) 21 and CSE (AI) at Diu 14. The schedule struck out 11 August 2026 as the last date to apply and showed 13 August 2026 instead.

Money matters here. Students admitted through CCMT or the Institute Round get teaching assistantships. GATE-qualified students receive Rs. 12,400 a month; non-GATE students may get up to 80% of that, on a committee's recommendation. The M.Tech page also lists AICTE QIP, Study in India and DASA as admission channels.

PhD admission is entirely the institute's own. The PhD admissions page runs a rolling advertisement, with applications processed periodically, for PhD programmes in Applied Physics, Computer Science & Engineering, Electronics & Communication Engineering, Humanities & Social Sciences and Mathematics & Computing. The modes are the Institute Selection Process, AICTE QIP and Study in India. Shortlisted candidates are called for a first round of selection, preferably online.

For full-time PhD in CSE or ECE, the minimum is 6 CGPA in M.Tech/M.E. or 8.0 CGPA in B.E./B.Tech./M.Sc./MCA/BS (4 years) for GEN/EWS/OBC, relaxed to 5.5 and 7.5 for SC/ST/PwD. The page does not list a GATE requirement. Full-time scholars receive Rs. 37,000 a month for two years and Rs. 42,000 for the next three, against TA and research duties.

A separate Visvesvaraya PhD Scheme advertisement for Electronics, CSE and IT had an application deadline of 20 October 2026 and a selection date of 23 October 2026. The PhD programme page describes one to two semesters of coursework followed by at least two to three years of research.

Sector-28 sits inside Gandhinagar, the state capital, next to Ahmedabad. If you are travelling from the south, Ahmedabad is the natural arrival point; see the Ahmedabad city page, which also covers Gandhinagar.

Gandhinagar, Ahmedabad and Vadodara are all GATE 2027 exam cities in the IIT Bombay zone on the tentative list. The Vadodara city page is relevant once the Dumad campus opens. IIT Gandhinagar is the other GATE institute in the city, and SVNIT Surat is the nearest NIT. Practise with previous year questions and topic tests, and see the GATE 2027 page for dates.