Mindtree, global technology services and digital transformation company, on Thursday, donated $2 million to Stanford University to boost academic focus on artificial intelligence (AI).

The donation would help the University's School of Engineering to establish in perpetuity an endowed Faculty Scholar position with a preference for faculty whose academic focus is in AI, the company said in a statement.

"Deploying AI-based technologies is now mission-critical for any business that wants to run its operations more efficiently, better understand and predict customer behaviour, and bring customised products and services to market faster," said Rostow Ravanan, CEO and Managing Director of Mindtree.

"We're proud to support Stanford School of Engineering to further accelerate the development of AI to solve complex problems facing businesses and society today," he added.

The university has appointed Professor Silvio Savarese as the inaugural Mindtree Faculty Scholar, whose research interests include computer vision, robotic perception and machine learning.

Mindtree has incorporated AI across its own business as well, employing a variety of AI-based virtual agents to work alongside its more than 17,000 Mindtree Minds and automate IT infrastructure management, data entry in human resources and financial workflows.