Both are great institutions in terms of academics and in terms of placements too, but there are some major factors that make IIIT Bangalore better than NIT Surathkal.

• Hygiene at campus and hostel: Both the hostel and campus of IIIT Bangalore are very clean. As cleanliness is very much important for all of us the hostel and campus of IIIT Bangalore are well maintained which is not the case at NIT Surathkal. This is very important for all of us and cannot be neglected.
• Study Curriculum: The study curriculum of IIIT Bangalore is very much up to date and it has all the important topics and syllabus which is important in today's world and will be helpful for the students in their future. 
• Admission based on merit: The admissions at IIIT Bangalore are completely based on the student's merit and there is no influence of other factors like caste, gender, management quota, etc. Students get admission based on his/her JEE score.
• Good research and industry opportunities: This college provides good research facilities to its students and the prime location of this college also helps to get more focus and attention which plays a major role to get further opportunities to its students.

But there are few demerits of the college too like - 

Life at this college can be difficult which is similar to many colleges in our country, as the environment there is not that fancy like it is shown in our movies but one can get used to it after spending a few months.

The college fest is not that great and interesting as compared to other colleges where the fests are organized in a grand way but this is slowly improving as both the students and the college are putting in efforts to make it better.

The future of M.Tech. in Artificial Intelligence in India is very bright and will take a little time to come into proper existence. After a few years, AI will be in the craze at the top level. AI is still in the growing or the initial phase. It is a huge field and is a wide area to explore. The important sub-fields of AI are Machine Learning, Neural Networks, Natural Language Processing, Deep Learning, and Computer Vision. These sub-fields are very large and will be trending in the market which will require skilled AI developers as they will be in more demand in the future.

The parameters to judge a college varies from an individual to another and is therefore different for anywhere. IIIT Hyderabad or IISc Bangalore are good options for an M.Tech in AI. As they are the top institutes when it comes to pursuing M.Tech. in the Computer Science domain in India. They are doing some good research works and are not only interested in the theory work or the textbook. Rather they are focussing on the practical implementation.

One of my friends is currently in his first year of M.tech CS at ISI Kolkata. Here are some crucial insights regarding the academics and placements according to his experience.

Academics: 

• If you have a CS background in your under graduation too, then all subjects in the first year will be mostly repetition for you. You can also check the exact list on the ISI website. However, many people with a CS background say that they have learned things in a much-refined way.
• In the second year, you finally get to choose subjects based on your interest which will help you in your final thesis.
• ISI is quite famous for cryptography but you can also find good thesis projects in prestigious fields like Machine learning, Image processing, Algorithms, VLSI, cognitive science, etc. Also, you get good guidance in all of these.

Placements:

ISI is particularly famous for statistics. So, most companies coming for placements offer Data science profiles. Very few companies would be offering developer job roles. So regarding the placements, it’s the best place to grab data scientist roles with lucrative packages. In the recent placement highlights, the average and highest CTC offered was 19.80 LPA and 42 LPA. 

Overall, ISI Kolkata is an amazing place to pursue your M.Tech in CS. The great academics and placement record indeed make it a haven for students associated with CS, mathematics, and statistics fields.

Here's an overview of the internship and Final Placement data for the M.Tech CS 2021 Batch:

Summer Internship

• The percentage of industry domains, where the most internships have been gained are - Data Science: 53.7% interns and Risk Modelling: 11% interns.
• The highest monthly stipend was INR 1.65 lakhs while the average monthly stipend was INR 82,000 lakhs.

Final Placements

• CSE department saw the highest placement percentage of 100%.
• The product-based domain offered the highest number of offers with 20.0%.
• Most of the jobs were for the role of a Data Scientist, nearly half of the total, with a 48% recruitment.
• The highest CTC offered was INR 56 LPA; the average CTC was INR 19.5 LPA and the median CTC offered was INR 18.6 LPA.

The top recruiters for the year 2021 were Google, Alphonso, Morgan Stanley, Microsoft, Amazon, Flipkart, PayPal, Samsung, KPMG, OYO, TATA, Naukri.com, Reliance, and others.

I have a friend who recently graduated in CSE from DIAT. According to her, DIAT fails to offer good opportunities to the students. It’s better to choose newer NITS. 

• Even though DIAT comes under the Ministry of Defense, the academics and facilities offered at the institute are not up to the mark.
• The teachings, non-teaching as well as administrative people are not cooperative with the students.
• Moreover, the placement cell doesn’t bring companies for placement as expected. They don’t even bring software companies like TCS or Infosys for placement.

So from this, you can draw an overview of how things are at DIAT. You can go for NIT Durgapur or NIT Goa. Even if you don’t get NITs, try for Government College of Engineering, Pune. It has better facilities and placements.