Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has announced that its university upskilling initiative, the HPE Academic Alliance Programme, has scaled to cover 176 colleges and universities across India, reaching more than 18,000 student beneficiaries in 2026. The programme is continuing to expand its footprint across the country, equipping students and faculty with industry-relevant skills while advancing education and research in AI-native networking, cloud, security and automated operations.
The expansion comes as India places greater emphasis on strengthening industry-academia collaboration to build a future-ready technology workforce. The programme is designed to provide universities with structured learning pathways, technical resources and enterprise-focused curriculum, giving students direct exposure to rapidly evolving areas including networking, AI, cloud and advanced digital infrastructure.
Under the HPE Academic Alliance Programme, students and faculty receive free, 24/7 access to online learning platforms and cloud-based virtual labs for three months, along with significantly discounted access to HPE’s global certifications.
The programme focuses on three core pillars: empowering students, building an industry-aligned skilled workforce and supporting faculty development. It offers free associate- and specialist-level training across areas including Mist AI, Cloud, Security and DevOps.
The initiative also enables universities to establish AI-native Networking Centres of Excellence (CoEs) at highly subsidised costs, providing dedicated learning infrastructure on campus. These CoEs are complemented by bootcamps and technical sessions led by HPE experts, giving students and faculty hands-on exposure to industry practices.
“As India’s technology landscape evolves and enterprises increasingly seek specialised skills across AI, networking, cloud and security, the expectations from the next generation of engineers are changing,” said Muthukumar, vice president – engineering and site lead for HPE Networking India. “Industry-academia collaboration has a critical role to play in preparing students for this shift. Through the HPE Academic Alliance, we are helping bridge the gap between academic learning and industry requirements by providing students and faculty with access to global certifications, expert-led bootcamps, cloud-based virtual labs, and industry-aligned curriculum. By expanding this ecosystem across more academic institutions, our aim is to help build a future-ready technology workforce equipped with the skills to contribute to India’s next phase of digital growth.”
Strengthening industry-aligned education
The programme has integrated with technical education hubs across India, including institutions such as National Institute of Technology Karnataka (NIT Surathkal), University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering (UVCE), Bengaluru, Government Engineering College Hassan (GECH), R.V. College of Engineering (RVCE), Bengaluru, and BMS College of Engineering (BMSCE), Bengaluru.
By embedding HPE’s specialised curriculum into engineering streams, the programme aims to help institutions modernise their curricula while improving student employability and providing exposure to enterprise-ready technology deployment.
HPE said it remains committed to expanding the Academic Alliance Programme through partnerships with additional universities and technical institutions across India, with the aim of making advanced technology education more accessible to the country’s engineering talent pool.