The COVID pandemic has made it clear to be resilient. Every industry, small or large must dress smart with a digital webinar. With this in mind, Intel India and IIT-Bombay with over 50 organisations have formed the first of its kind industry and technology Consortium called ‘The Plungin Alliance’, which seeks to advance the adoption of smart industry solutions such as AI, machine vision, robotics, and more.

This Alliance brings together large enterprises, SMEs, technology providers, startups, venture capitalists and industry bodies. CNBC-TV18’s Startup Street spoke to Nivruti Rai, Country Head, Intel India and vice-president Intel Foundry Services, to get more insight on how the Alliance plans to make India's industries more intelligent.

Talking about the Plugin Alliance, the organisations involved alongside Intel and IIT Bombay, and the mission behind this initiative, Nivruti Rai said, “When you think of any successful startup, it comprises of a few things - it comprises of an amazing idea, it comprises of somebody willing to invest in it. And then lastly, somebody is willing to buy it. And in addition, oftentimes, many new technologies come with regulatory and policy support.”

"So, what we decided was to let us not just be the incubator for the startups to enable ideas and enable systems - what we did was to build an alliance that helps to collaborate, that helps to invest, then that helps to build and scale. So collaborate, invest, build, and scale, and who are the partners of the alliance members you need for it? You need VCs, who can invest, you need industries, all kinds, big entrepreneurs, big industries MSMEs, then you need academia to sometimes support you with ideas and then lastly, you need government."

"So what we've done is we have multiple participants in each of these areas, trying to address a collaboration for the idea, the investment to enable the idea, then to basically a build the idea and then scale the idea, so we have 55 plus partner already."

When asked what were the other emerging technologies that can help accelerate industry 4.0 transformation in India, Rai said AI was definitely a gamechanger. "India can create more than 500 billion, the world can create, you know, 15 to 17 percent, more GDP and so on. But what are some of the other technologies - one single technology does not ever build a solution is the convergence of many technologies."

"So, I will tell you some of the technologies that I totally believe that we must look at incubating and investing blockchain, for example. So whether the blockchain is for the Bitcoin or any other currency, or blockchain can also be leveraged for many other technologies, for example, the NFTs then look at quantum, enabling quantum internet where you do not see any time lapse between you're pressing the button to download a movie to actually download it, so quantum."

Then there is a lot of automation, there's connectivity technology, 5G and then even for rural connectivity, what are those innovations where they can drive enough bandwidth into the villages. There are many technologies like that should.

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