#42 · QS Data Science and AI 2026
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
- Urbana-Champaign, United States
- 5 programs
- 3 free courses
- 3 research labs
- University website
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) sits in the twin cities of Urbana and Champaign, Illinois, USA. AI lives in the Siebel School of Computing and Data Science, part of The Grainger College of Engineering, and in several national AI institutes on campus. We list 5 programs: three master's degrees in computer science and robotics, a bachelor's degree in statistics and computer science, and a PhD.
Programs
Language, length and tuition as UIUC states them on its own pages.
Bachelor's
Master's
PhD
Free courses
Published by UIUC for anyone, at no cost.
- Text Mining and AnalyticsCoursera · Text mining and natural language processing, part of the Data Mining specialization. Free to enroll, paid certificate.
- Pattern Discovery in Data MiningCoursera · Finding patterns and frequent patterns in big data. Free to enroll, paid certificate.
- Cluster Analysis in Data MiningCoursera · Data clustering methods from the same specialization. Free to enroll, paid certificate.
Research labs
- Center for Artificial Intelligence Innovation (CAII), NCSA
Connects AI research across campus and runs hackathons and student programs.
- AIFARMS Institute
A national AI institute for agriculture: computer vision in livestock farming and advice for agronomists based on generative models.
- INVITE Institute (INnovatiVe Intelligent Technologies for Education)
Machine learning and language processing for learning systems that support students' persistence and collaboration.
What to know
The Siebel School has an AI research group. It works on computer vision, audio recognition, natural language processing, machine learning and robotics. Source
The Grainger College of Engineering says it has raised nearly 270 million USD for AI projects and programs since 2019. The money goes to uses of AI in agriculture, education and medicine. Source
The survey course CS 440 / ECE 448 Artificial Intelligence keeps an open website with its syllabus: search, knowledge representation and inference, machine learning, and natural language understanding. Source
The university runs its online master's in computer science with Coursera: lectures are on the platform, while assignments, projects and exams are graded by university faculty and teaching assistants. Applications for spring semester 2027 are accepted until October 30. Source
Admission for international students
Requirements for international applicants to master's and PhD programs are published on the Graduate College page. It lists the accepted English tests and minimum scores, for example IELTS Academic 7.5 for full admission and 6.5 for conditional admission. The Siebel School sets its own deadlines: PhD and M.S. applications for the fall semester are due by December 1, and the on-campus MCS for fall by May 1. Source
Checked against the university's own pages on October 16, 2026.