“The kind of innovation India’s industrial AI startups have is unparalleled across the globe. Surprisingly, such innovation is not stemming out of the Bay area,” said Derick Jose, co-founder of Flutura, a global leader in applying industrial AI for energy and engineering applications. “Our strength is the cluster-oriented talent we have been able to hone. For example, Bengaluru has defence as a vertical, Pune has auto and manufacturing, and Chennai has auto and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). They are also thriving ecosystems where engineering prowess and industry intersect.”
Bengaluru, even before the advent of IT, was a defence and aeronautics cluster. There was a very strong engineering base in the southern Indian city. Then slowly, we saw the evolution of an intersection of analytics and engineering. A great example of this is Sunlux Technologies, which manufactures sensors for the Indian Navy.
“In every hi-tech hub of developed innovation economies, the rise of the modern-day tech entrepreneurship ecosystem (startups and venture capital) happened under the larger canopy of an advanced industrial innovation ecosystem,” said Vishwanathan Sahasranamam, co-founder and CEO of Forge Accelerator. “This ecosystem powered and pioneered the development and commercialisation of advanced technologies in creating globally competitive solutions for the most challenging industrial sectors. The greatest contribution of this being the creation of highly competent technologists, who, with the vision to exploit the power of these technologies and the entrepreneurial ambitions, created the next generation of multibillion-dollar ventures.”
A 2016 report by McKinsey states that, while “feeling” prepared, only 30% of the technology suppliers and 16% of the manufacturers have an overall strategy for Industry 4.0 (the trend towards automation and data exchange in manufacturing technologies) in place, and only 24% have assigned clear responsibilities for that.
“India is known for its software prowess and we have the talent and capabilities in machine learning, computer vision, and deep learning,” said Tarun Mishra, co-founder of DeTech Technologies. “The next level is building the AI layer on top and India is front-ending this revolution. In many ways, we are the OEMs of this data and it is only organic for us to expand to the field of industrial AI.” DeTech Technologies is a Chennai-based startup incubated at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras in 2016. It works with leading global oil and gas companies.
What would help Indian startups in this space is larger government grants, akin to what the US, China, and Israel provide. Indian talent is also slowly warming up to this space, thus, engineering colleges must modify their curriculum to keep pace.
At a micro level, according to some of the founders of these startups, what has worked for them is:
“The startup story of India has largely been domestic till now. Thanks to the kind of global companies being built, industrial AI is emerging as a space where India can establish a leadership position in the global AI ecosystem,”
Aniruddha Bannerjee, founder, SwitchOn:“…show tangible return on investment. From day one, we work with customers who’re looking at numbers. Working with a demanding customer makes it easier to work with others.” SwitchOn builds AI solutions for auto and FMCG firms.
Harsimrat Bhasin, co-founder of Neewee AI: “Bodhee’s value proposition of delivering analytics outcomes on the shop-floor and its holistic approach of integrating silos in the manufacturing value chain has helped us gain faster traction.” Bodhee is the company’s industrial analytics product with an AI solution that predicts industrial outcomes.
Tech Coverage 