Intel, IIT Bombay's SINE launch initiative to accelerate Industry 4.0

Called Plugin Alliance, the initiative will enable the formation of special interest groups for its industry members to drive innovation and potential adoption of emerging technologies

Intel India in collaboration with Society for Innovation & Entrepreneurship (SINE)-IIT Bombay, on Thursday launched Plugin Alliance, a first-of-its-kind industry-technology grouping with a focus on accelerating Industry 4.0 transformation in India.

Plugin Alliance’s members represent large enterprises, small and medium enterprises, technology solution providers, systems integrators, startups, the startup ecosystem including funding partners, relevant incubators, government, and industry bodies.

The Alliance is designed to evolve into a community with the participation of these members, representing all facets of the Industry 4.0 ecosystem.

The Alliance will enable the formation of special interest groups for its industry members to drive innovation and potential adoption of emerging technologies.

One of the focus areas would be to curate Industry 4.0 startups for the Alliance members based on their area of interest and priorities.

Once aligned, members define the success criteria and provide an immersive environment for the startup to do their pilots. The Alliance aims to build a community that shares and collaborates on ideas and on promoting India as a brand for Industry 4.0 solutions.

The Alliance’s roadmap includes collaborating with other global bodies focused on Industry 4.0.

“With digitalisation taking center stage across industries and businesses, Intel remains committed to partnering with the India ecosystem to drive digital transformation. Plugin Alliance brings together the key constituents of the ecosystem on one platform to find, innovate, build, adopt and scale smart industrial solutions,” said Nivruti Rai, country head, Intel India, and vice president, Intel Foundry Services.

Plugin Alliance aims to advance and scale emerging technology solutions like Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Vision, Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality (AR/VR), Robotics, Cyber Security, 5G & Edge, Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) & Mobility and other future emerging technologies to help accelerate digital transformation.

With ‘Making Industries Intelligent’ as its motto, Plugin Alliance’s key components include increasing awareness about and enabling adoption of Industry 4.0 among larger enterprises and SMEs; identifying and exploring current and future Industry 4.0 solutions; accelerating startups to develop market ready solutions; building India as a brand for Industry 4.0 solutions; and enhancing the attractiveness of Indian manufacturing.

The Plugin Accelerator program, which is now a part of the Plugin Alliance, will be available to startups who are members of the Alliance.

The Accelerator will draw on domain, technical and business mentors from within the Alliance member community and look at external mentors based on need.

The Plugin Accelerator will now evolve to have a rolling admission process for early and growth stage startups that offer emerging and disruptive use cases to cater to the needs of the ecosystem for Industry 4.0 acceleration. The Alliance currently has 53 members including 25 startups.

“The idea of Plugin Alliance could not have come at a better time when the businesses across various verticals are adopting digitisation on priority basis. IIT Bombay has several high impact initiatives going on its campus where the focus is to provide smart solutions leveraging innovations. By bringing industry, academia and startups on the same platform, the process will accelerate for the mutual benefits of the businesses and startups,” said Professor Subhasis Chaudhuri, director of IIT Bombay.