Synopsis
Roland Busch, Global CEO of Siemens, writes India will not only develop its very own artificial intelligence capabilities, it will also export AI services and AI innovation.
When I was on the managing board of Siemens India, India was the global benchmark for offshoring. Today, I’m witnessing a country that has everything it needs to become an AI leader and powerhouse. I expect India will not only develop its very own AI capabilities, it will also export AI services and AI innovation. Here is why.
The desert is a harsh place. If you didn’t know, desert sand can stop a cog from turning, corrode the inside of an engine, and even make entire roads disappear. One of our customers in the Middle East, a large oil and gas producer, operates wells, heavy machinery and specialist vehicles in remote parts of a desert. And the sandstorms they face can be fierce, often causing sand accumulations on critical sites, resulting in significant financial damage. It can take days to locate the exact spots where the damage happened.
Innovation developed in India
My colleague and AI expert, Chethan Seegehalli, and his team in Bengaluru developed an AI application that predicts these sand accumulations. They trained an AI model with historical satellite images of the customer’s critical sites. Then they cross-referenced the images with weather data. This gave the AI the data it needed to calculate how and where future weather patterns would affect their operations.
Today, the model developed by Chethan and his team can predict the area, volume and frequency of sand accumulations seven days in advance – and with more than 70% accuracy. This allows our customer to allocate resources for clean ups in advance, which can reduce costs by more than 20%.
The future and what it means for India
Discover the stories of your interest
For these types of industrial AI applications, we already see strong demand. And India, with its vast talent pool of software developers and engineers, fast-growing diversified industries and government support, is well-positioned not only to adopt this technology but also to deliver it to the rest of the world. The country is on track to become a $7 trillion economy by 2030, and i
