Two Indian university professors are among the first five recipients of Microsoft's fellowship awards for promoting innovating research in computer science, the global tech giant said Tuesday.

Subhash Khot and Radhika Nagpal are the two Indians who won the New Faculty Fellowship Awards, a new Microsoft programme that honours early-career university professors who demonstrate exceptional talent for novel research.

Selected from among 110 nominees representing universities across the US, the five inaugural fellows will each receive a $200,000 grant to pursue innovative research in computer science.

The winners will also be given the opportunity to explore collaborations with some of the top researchers working in their area of interest at Microsoft, said a company statement.

Khot is a first year assistant professor in the College of Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology. His research tackles "fundamental questions regarding which problems can and cannot be solved" quickly on a computer.

"The questions Khot addresses in his work often have deep connections to diverse areas in mathematics, logic, cryptography and computer science," the statement said.

Nagpal is a first year assistant professor of computer science in the Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University.

Her research interest is in engineering self-organising, self-repairing systems, using inspiration from biology and in better understanding robust collective behaviour in biological systems.

Other winners of the award are Frédo Durand from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dan Klein from the University of California, Berkeley, and Wei Wang from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

"We have much to learn, and much to gain, from today's talented young minds," said Rick Rashid, senior vice president of Microsoft Research.

"Even early in their teaching careers, these award winners are pushing the boundaries of computer science research in exciting new directions," he added.

"The intellectual curiosity, creative drive and thought leadership they demonstrate is exactly the sort of initiative we seek to encourage in developing programmes like the New Faculty Fellowship Awards."