India is looking into a mirror of possibilities.
The velocity with which new technologies are emerging across a myriad of sectors is shaping a forward-looking future; the last decade has seen India embrace frontier tech — cutting-edge innovations that are shaping industries, societies, and economies in transformative ways.
BVR Subrahmanyam, NITI Aayog CEO, underscores that frontier technology is capable of realising eight percent of India’s growth by creating new avenues for emerging innovation. “We are at the heart of policymaking in India. We push the envelope rather than getting caught up in the daily grind of schemes,” he pointed out.
His belief is backed by a growth story that is rapidly unfolding across the country. And co-authoring this narrative are students, innovators, doctors, civil servants, and educators — determined to bring breakthroughs from the margins to the mainstream.
Tackling malnutrition with an app
Our first stop is the Todsa Ashram School in Maharashtra’s Etapalli.
It’s break time and 222 girls queue in front of a machine that will analyse their BMI (body mass index). Relief colours their faces as the results indicate a number upward of the previous ‘malnourished’ index.
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In 2022, IAS officer Shubham Gupta — then assistant collector of Etapalli — was shocked to learn that 61 of the 222 girls were malnourished. Now Managing Director of Western Maharashtra Development Corporation, Pune, Gupta recalls how the statistic compelled him to think out of the box.
IAS Officer Shubham Gupta with students of the Todsa Ashram School in Etapalli district of Maharashtra, Picture source: IAS officer Shubham Gupta
The answer lay in a simple app. Each time a student displayed their plate, the app scanned it against 2,100 images and data points, pointing out anomalies. Were the bananas substandard? Were the eggs bad? Was the dal too watery? Nothing escaped its hawk vision.
Gupta says the app not only helped reduce malnutrition but also reshaped his view of AI’s power in public health. “The best part is that what once took 20 years can now be achieved in five with the help of technology.”
A snapshot of the parameters assessed by the machine that has been installed at the Todsa Ashram School, Picture source: Shubham Gupta
Even beyond the ambit of the project he pioneered, Gupta sees AI in healthcare as a breakthrough.
This view is shared by two doctors, Dr Dhruv Joshi and Dr Dileep Raman. Their healthcare tech platform, Cloudphysician, is setting a precedent for how healthcare — when combined with frontier technology — could transform the bedrock of critical care.
The ‘ICU in a box’: Embracing frontier tech in healthcare
Why is the infrastructure of critical care crumbling in rural pockets of India?
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In hospitals where there are no ICU specialists or where the inflow of patients is too high, what can be done to ensure every patient receives the highest standard of care?
This is where the Smart ICU solution developed by Cloudphysician comes into play. As Dr Dhruv explains, “The command centre at Cloudphysician is connected to the hospital ICU where we partner. Patients who are in this hospital ICU are monitored 24/7 by a trained critical care team at Cloudphysician.”
This monitoring includes tracking the patient’s vitals, spotting complications, and alerting doctors on site in time if the vitals show anything unusual.
Bedside caregivers are constantly in touch with the command centre, Picture credits: Dr Dhruv Joshi
But even as these revolutions brew in healthcare, they are just one vein in a growing ebb of possibilities that spotlight the power of tech. Stories in agriculture, education, urban planning and security mirror the same success.
And is India ready to embrace this frontier technology?
Well, the only way to predict the future is to create it, as a NITI Aayog report points out.
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Reasoning that India currently stands at the forefront of a technological revolution, Subrahmanyam says we must approach AI’s potential with both ambition and responsibility. “Our goal is clear: India must not only emerge as a global leader in technological innovation but also as a champion of responsible, ethical, and inclusive development. We have the talent, the resources, and with the right strategies in place, we can establish a new global standard for AI governance and deployment.”
Currently on the cusp of a technological renaissance, a steady adoption of frontier technologies will see India leapfrog into an era where it harnesses this tech with bold intent. Think AI-enabled classrooms in every village, drones ensuring last-mile medical support and blockchain securing transparent welfare distribution.
The AI program offers a range of features, including real-time solutions to textbook questions and the generation of practice tests, Picture source: IAS Officer Saumya Jha
Great ideas must be accompanied by great policy shifts. This is where India’s National AI Mission — an endeavour by the government to encourage a robust and inclusive AI ecosystem in India, mega-investments in research, subsidies for green energy, and smart cities come into play.
India is primed to emerge as an exemplar, offering scalable models to the Global South.
A UN report that measures the country’s readiness for frontier technologies agrees. From its previous rank of 48 in 2022, India now ranks 36 out of 170 nations on this global index; its rank in R&D (research and development) is impressive, standing at number three.
The credit goes to the country’s innovators who are constantly pushing the envelope on ingenuity, brainstorming tech-driven solutions to India’s deep-seated problems.
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This boom of technology for transformation is positioned against the backdrop of the 2024 Cabinet approval of the IndiaAI Mission. The goal is to strengthen the AI innovation ecosystem by democratising computing access; enhancing data quality; developing indigenous AI capabilities; attracting top AI talent; enabling industry collaboration; providing startup risk capital; ensuring socially impactful AI projects; and promoting ethical AI.
And this is where the question arises: Can AI foster a dialogue between potential and practicality?
We turn to the traffic systems in Chandigarh, which blink in approval.
Can AI reimagine our cities into safe spaces?
What’s happening in Chandigarh is becoming an example for India to follow.
The 2,085 AI-driven CCTV cameras installed across the city keep a tight rein on violations. The success of the model lay in the 8.41 lakh challans that were issued using the Integrated Traffic Management System (ITMS) cameras for red-light jumping, over-speeding, zebra crossing violations, riding without helmets, and wrong parking.
The Integrated Traffic Management System (ITMS) cameras issue challans for red-light jumping, over-speeding, zebra crossing violations, riding without helmets, and wrong parking, Representative image
The cameras made surveillance “more efficient”, Senior Superintendent of Police (traffic) Sumer Pratap Singh told The New Indian Express. “The CCTV cameras installed across the city are Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven, thus they automatically detect and record traffic violations. This feature makes them different from other cities.”
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To participate or to lead — this is the crossroads at which India currently stands. And catalysing the decisions that will incline it towards the latter is the NITI Frontier Tech Hub (FTH) — an initiative by NITI Aayog, the public policy think tank of the Government that brings together innovators, policymakers, researchers, and industry leaders to drive frontier technology innovation.
The mission is clear: to address pressing challenges in agriculture, healthcare, and education, preparing India to harness cutting-edge technologies for accelerating economic and social progress on the path to a Viksit Bharat by 2047.
The ICU in a box and the smart traffic systems are a preview of the kind of cutting-edge ideas and practical tools that the NITI Frontier Tech Hub celebrates — actionable strategies across domains that will help build policy roadmaps, ones with the potential to be replicated by policymakers, state departments, researchers and academics.
The Hub goes to ensure that frontier technologies don’t just remain ideas — they become solutions that truly work for India.
It is this pragmatism that Chaitanya Dubey, founder of an IIT Kanpur-incubated startup Kinoko Biotech, favours the most when it comes to assessing the success of an innovation. Kinoko’s poster product is a biodegradable thermocol alternative developed using mushroom mycelium and agricultural waste.
Smart farms, smarter harvests: Embracing frontier tech in agriculture
India has always shown an appetite for such trailblazing innovations, Chaitanya says. “We see this in the form of the demand that has been there for the product. People are enthusiastic about supporting small businesses.”
The planet-friendly thermocol can be used as a fertiliser too. Picture credit: Chaitanya Dubey
To this end, he reasons, “The question isn’t whether India is ready for such technologies, but whether the right product can be provided at the right price and with the right quality consistency.” If this is made possible, then he believes there is nothing stopping India from embracing innovation.
We keep our gaze trained on the fields, which are booming with possibility, according to a Financial Express report that postulates that the use of AI in farming is growing quickly and could reach $350 million by 2033.
This is underscored by the success of projects like ‘Kisan e-Mitra AI Chatbot’ (under the PM-KISAN scheme), which helps in answering farmers’ questions about subsidies, eligibility, and payments; the ‘Namo Drone Didi Scheme’, which equips women with the skills to use drone technology for pesticide and fertiliser spraying across districts and the ‘Saagu Baagu Project’ in Telangana which has improved the chilli value chain for more than 7,000 farmers.
AI isn’t just helping scale people’s knowledge in the field, but also in the remotest classrooms.
Using the power of tech to teach: Embracing the digital revolution
In January this year, the world celebrated International Day of Education under the theme ‘AI and Human Agency’. It was a call to the teaching fraternity to reflect on how artificial intelligence (AI) can transform education while maintaining human agency at its core.
Through initiatives like ‘AI For All’ — a self-learning online programme designed to raise public awareness about artificial intelligence and demystify it for people from all walks of life — a student, a stay-at-home parent, a professional in any field, or even a senior citizen can build a digital-first mindset.
Akshay also opened a research centre in Sirsi Village for children to access and learn. Picture credit: Akshay Mashelkar
India’s commitment towards inclusion in education is underscored by AI-powered assistive technologies, including speech-to-text tools, text-to-speech tools and real-time translation, which empower children with visual and hearing impairments.
The aim is for technology to become an equaliser.
And one such equaliser is ‘Shiksha’ — a humanoid robot developed by physics professor Akshay Mashelkar in Sirsi, Karnataka.
Constructed over a year and a half with an investment of just Rs 2 lakh, Shiksha has subject-specific lessons in Kannada, English, and Mathematics and is helping bridge the educational gaps in over 25 schools.
The resilience and rise of India’s frontier technology
There’s a revolution brewing in India, have you heard?
In Maharashtra, a plug-and-play wastewater treatment reactor uses advanced electrochemical processes to purify water in just 240 seconds, while in Uttarakhand, a portable machine turns crop waste into biochar using a thermo-chemical process. In Telangana, there’s a solar-powered floating device that uses ultrasonic waves to reduce algal blooms by 90 percent in just a month, boosting oxygen levels 5x.
Understanding the elements that Digital Paani works with to address their water treatment needs, Picture source: Digital Paani
While the fields are witness to some lucrative innovations, the skies, too, have their fair share. A Chennai-based startup is reshaping how India builds and launches rockets through its modular rocket that can carry payloads between 30 kg and 300 kg into low Earth orbit. Then there’s Odisha-based Nebula Space Organisation that’s building India’s first gamma-ray detecting CubeSat to make real-time Earth imagery accessible to governments and researchers.
While India is reaching for the skies with these innovations, other frontier technologies are grounded in tackling challenges that plague our cities. Take, for instance, the AI-powered robot in Kerala equipped with night vision, gas sensors, and a robotic arm that can clean 12 manholes in eight hours or the eco-friendly air conditioner developed in Hyderabad that cuts electricity bills by 80 percent using smart evaporative cooling.
Sanitation workers are trained to operate the robots, creating new employment opportunities, Picture source: Genrobotics
Juxtaposed against these innovations, there are new ones that are up and coming as we speak. The next decade is crucial for India. As the NITI Aayog report outlines, the objectives are to produce comprehensive strategies and policy recommendations to shape India’s frontier tech readiness, while showcasing the human-centric use of frontier technologies and engaging in international dialogues and collaborations that drive advocacy and acceptance of the India Development Model.
There are reports to back this. A 2024 NASSCOM report projects that India’s AI market will expand by $500 billion by 2025, accounting for almost 10 percent of the nation’s GDP. Another underscores AI’s potential in agriculture in the foreseeable future to reduce the need for water and fertilisers by 25–50 percent, optimising agriculture while addressing global food security challenges. New age startups are primed to lead the way for transformative change by redefining how technology interacts with the world. With the burgeoning number of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) which are seeing an infusion of AI, it’s a case in point for how AI is set to level the playing field for innovation.
And a multitude of initiatives are catalysing this. Take, for instance, the Skill India Initiative, which aims to train individuals in AI and data science, in an attempt to bridge the talent gap, and create a robust ecosystem that supports sustainable growth in the AI landscape. The goals are aspirational, even in the job market. According to a 2025 NLB Services report, India is projected to create approximately 35 million green jobs by 2047 and around 7.29 million by the financial year 2027-28. This is against the backdrop of India’s goal of achieving 500 GW of non-fossil fuel capacity by 2030, driven by large-scale wind and solar farms.
The expansion of reliable 5G networks is expected to enable telemedicine to link more than 60 million rural Indians with urban hospitals, narrowing the gap between remote communities and advanced healthcare facilities.
A new India is in the works. One where AI can be used to tackle malnutrition, cities can be made safer by integrating technology into surveillance networks, mushrooms can replace thermacol, and robots can ensure that no child’s questions go unanswered.
And you’re called to be a part of the new India’s growth story here.
