IIT Madras Free Machine Learning Course 2026: IIT Madras is offering a free Machine Learning course in collaboration with SWAYAM and registrations are now open. Students and professionals looking to build or expand their skills in Machine Learning and related AI tasks - like fraud detection, identifying spam emails, predicting house prices and more — can benefit from this opportunity. The course will be taught by a professor from India's top engineering institute, as per the NIRF Rankings 2025 and over 1,000 learners have already enrolled.
The course will begin on January 19 and conclude on April 10, 2025, while registrations will remain open until February 13, 2026. It will be taught by Balaraman Ravindran, Professor of Computer Science at IIT Madras and Mindtree Faculty Fellow and is best suited for senior Undergraduate (UG) or Postgraduate (PG) students.
What Are the Prerequisites or Eligibility Criteria?
The course includes assignments that require programming, so learners must be familiar with commonly used languages such as Python or R for Machine Learning. Basic topics are also reviewed for students new to computer science, but prior knowledge of linear algebra and probability theory is mentioned as helpful.
What Will the Course Cover?
The three-month course starts with foundational mathematical concepts such as Probability Theory, Linear Algebra, and Convex Optimization as a recap. It then moves into two key types of supervised learning - regression and classification. Classification assigns data to categories, while regression predicts continuous values.
Other algorithms and concepts covered include:
- Linear Classification
- Logistic Regression
- Neural Networks
- Decision Trees
- Regression Trees
- Gradient Boosting
- Random Forests
- Introduction to Reinforcement Learning
Reinforcement learning is a Machine Learning method where an "agent" learns to make decisions through trial and error to achieve a goal.
Course Certificate
Learners who wish to receive a certificate must register for the exam scheduled on April 17, 2026, which will be conducted in two sessions - 9:30 am to 12:30 pm and 2 pm to 5 pm. The exam fee is Rs 1,000, and it will be a proctored, in-person test at designated exam centres.
How To Apply For IIT Madras's Machine Learning Course?
Visit the official website link - Machine Learning Swayam Course.
Click on "Join" and login with your gmail or microsoft ID.
Enter the required details and you will be successfully registered for the course.
