C-DOT Signs MoU with IIT Hyderabad for Centre of Excellence in Advanced Communication Technologies

📌 Summary:

• C-DOT (the premier telecom R&D centre under the Department of Telecommunications) signed an MoU with IIT Hyderabad to set up a Centre of Excellence (CoE) in advanced communication technologies
• Focus areas: wireless communications, quantum technologies, cybersecurity and AI-driven applications; joint R&D on 5G-Advanced/6G, very large-scale MIMO, integrated sensing and communication, AI-enabled networks, and quantum and post-quantum communications
• This is the fourth C-DOT CoE, after IIT Kanpur, IIT Gandhinagar and IIT Roorkee — strengthening academia-industry synergy and indigenous innovation
• The CoE will support students, researchers and startups, enable IP creation, and advance technological self-reliance (Viksit Bharat, Bharat 6G Vision)
• C-DOT already works with WISIG (an IIT-H incubated startup) on disaggregated 5G O-RAN solutions; it showcased the TRINETRA cybersecurity suite and quantum communications (QKD and PQC)

🎯 UPSC Relevance: GS3 Science & Technology (indigenous telecom R&D, 6G, quantum, cybersecurity) — self-reliance in critical and emerging technologies.

📝 Prelims Facts:

• C-DOT = Centre for Development of Telematics, under the Department of Telecommunications (DoT)
• Existing C-DOT CoEs: IIT Kanpur, IIT Gandhinagar, IIT Roorkee; IIT Hyderabad is the 4th
• O-RAN = Open Radio Access Network; QKD = Quantum Key Distribution; PQC = Post-Quantum Cryptography
• TRINETRA = C-DOT's cybersecurity suite

🔑 Key Term: Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) — cryptographic algorithms designed to remain secure against attacks by future quantum computers.