Like many large companies around the world Apollo Tyres, an Indian company that sells tires in 100+ countries, wants to gain a competitive edge with Generative AI. It has six enterprise-grade Gen AI pilot projects in the works: half of them with young companies based at Hyderabad’s T-Hub, one of the world’s largest innovation accelerators
Apollo has opened a 2000 square foot mobility center of excellence (Digital Innovation Hub) at the accelerator as part of an open innovation program focused on everything from supply chain optimization to manufacturing. “The problems we are trying to solve need a lot of innovative technology and design thinking,” says Harsh Vardhan, Apollo’s head of digital innovation. “In the last 8 months we were able to vet 130 plus startups at T-Hub and have signed NDAs with 32 of them.”
The Indian tire company is one of a number of corporates, such as Boeing, Novartis, Citibank and Pepsico, that have either set up outposts or regularly work with T-Hub, a 5,85,000 square foot facility that can house up to 1,000 startups and serves as one of the key program delivery partners for Invest India and Startup India.
Renault Nissan Technology & Business Centre India and the U.S.’s Broadridge Financial Solutions have separately organized innovation challenges at the accelerator. T-Hub has partnered with the UK Government on a ‘UK-India Emerging Tech Exchange Program’ focused on sustainability. France and Wales have located trade mission offices there. Idex, the innovation arm of the Indian army, has set up an outpost there, which is not surprising considering that T-Hub houses the highest number of aerospace and defense tech startups in India.
T-Hub also houses MATH, a center of excellence for AI and ML technologies launched in March by T-Hub and India’s Department of Science and Technology, which aims to create 500 AI-related jobs, support 150 startups annually, and foster innovation in India’s AI sector. (T-Hub also houses four other centers of excellence: cybersecurity, geospatial intelligence, digital payments and social innovation)
T-Hub’s neighbor T-Works, a state-of-the-art makers lab which is also part of the Telangana ecosystem, serves as India’s largest hardware prototyping center (and the second largest in the world). It has attracted the involvement of corporates like Qualcomm and Honeywell and global organizations such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Care, an international humanitarian agency that focuses on emergency relief and long-term international development projects.
But it would be a mistake to think of T-Hub and T-Works as places that mainly serve as a one-stop shop for large international organizations to cherry pick the best technologies and entrepreneurs.T-Hub and T-Works exemplify how India is shifting from a service economy that focused on helping others innovate to an” innovate in India” philosophy, says Lasya Nadimpally, T-Work’s senior marketing director.
T-Works’ goal is to make India a leader in hardware product innovation, she says. Startups at T-Works include SpanTrik, a space launch services company aiming to make space exploration more affordable and accessible by building the next generation of reusable rockets. Others such as the aerospace startup Skyroot, (which was incubated at T-Hub) have prototyped parts of a rocket at T-Works. Skyroot CEO Pawan Kumar Chandana recently projected that India could manage up to 50% of global launches of satellites for vehicles weighing under 500 kg by 2030.
There are now some 140 space startups in India and the number of entrepreneurs targeting other fields are mushrooming. Workshops at T-Works aim to train Indians for the jobs and startups of the future. Summertime at T-Works gives a glimpse of what that might look like: Some 2000 students, aged 6 to 18, filled the center, working on problem solving in areas such as robotics, IoT and drones, says Krishna Teja Garapati, T-Works’ senior executive program and events. “We are creating and celebrating a culture of makers, innovators, and hobbyists who explore and experiment without the fear of failure,” she says.
The Evolution Of The India Innovation Ecosystem
International companies have been setting up Global Capability Centers in India for the past three decades and there are about 1,600 of them today. Initially these centers were providing back-office support to headquarters but now they are doing more critical research, solving cutting edge issues, and are becoming the R&D engines of these multinationals. The best and brightest of India’s technologists are not just populating these R&D centers or leaving to work in Silicon Valley. India now has over 1,12,718 startups across 763 districts of the country as of October 2023, according to Invest India. It has 111 unicorns with a total valuation of $349.67 billion, and many more with the potential to reach that growth stage. The World Economic Forum’s 2024 Technology Pioneers include 10 companies from India.
What’s more, the world is recognizing and looking to diversify away from China’s dominance in the supply of a wide array of products. The confluence of this with the ‘Make in India’ program by the government of India to transform the country into a global design and manufacturing hub, coupled with capital support from the private sector, are creating a perfect enabling environment for India’s entrepreneurs, say industry observers.
T-Hub and T-Works are tapping into that talent and the current zeitgeist. “T-Hub’s mission is to enable and empower an ecosystem hungry for innovation,” says T-Hub CEO Srinivas Rao Mahankali. “This mission is realized through a collaborative framework that integrates industry, academia, and government, known as the Triple Helix model of innovation.”
A Startup Hub For A Startup State
While other accelerators rival T-Hub in size – France’s Station F, for example, which was conceived and funded by French telecom billionaire Xavier Niel, also houses up to 1,000 startups – T-Hub’s ownership structure and not-for-profit status set it apart.
T-Hub was created as a public-private partnership, with backing from the Telangana government – the state where Hyderabad is based – as well as support from industry leaders and top tier educational institutes. T-Hub’s Board of Directors includes representatives from all three sectors. It has not-for-profit status and is built on a self-sustaining model and doesn’t seek grants from either the government or the private sector.
Phase one of T-Hub was launched in 2015, the same year that Telangana become a state. It was designed to be a magnet and startups from all over India have been feeling the pull ever since, paying a fraction of what top tier accelerators in Silicon Valley or Europe charge for co-working space, mentoring and networking.
Zobaze, a five-year-old company that simplifies tasks like writing bills, tracking stock, managing expenses, and monitoring staff for small stores, coffee shops and cafes, credits T-Hub with helping it to fine-tune its business model. It now operates in 190 countries.
Ravi Bhogu, co-founder and CEO of Monitra Healthcare, an medical device company which specializes in remote heart monitoring, says his company has achieved four main benefits from being based at T-hub. “Some of the best startups in India are located in this building so if you have problems all you have to do is walk over to them and bounce off ideas about what to do,” he says. Access to talent is another plus. The company found its CFO at T-Hub, says Bhogu. The company says it also values the connections with research institutions and networking opportunities that T-Hub offers.
Multiplier AI, a global AI-first healthcare marketing platform that aims to help pharmaceutical and medical device companies scale their marketing efforts more effectively, says T-Hub helped it get access to the global leadership of pharma and medical device companies it was targeting. “T-Hub got four meetings for us, and we signed up three as customers,” says CEO Vikram Kumar.
T-Hub also helps foreign startups gain access to the Indian market. It has delivered market access programs for the U.S., South Korea, Japan, Canada, Australia, MENA regions and Brazil; worked with 200+ international startups through Indian market access intervention and partnered with 20+ global accelerators/incubators.
Like T-Hub, T-Works is open to both local and foreign entities. It works with students, individuals, startups, corporates, and universities. Its facilities include advanced rapid prototyping, wood shop, PCB Fab, metal shop, textile studio, makermart, laser shop, sensor lab, electronics and testing, 3D printing and a ceramic studio. On any given day you can find people doing everything from spinning ceramic pots and preserving traditional Indian art forms to prototyping semiconductor designs or electric vehicles that can run on many terrains.
Focus areas for product development include electric and hybrid vehicle systems, agritech and food processing, drones and unmanned vehicles, social innovation, defense and aerospace, maritime and medical innovation.
These are areas that most engineers in training in India would have never considered as careers, says T-Works’ Nadimpally. But product creation and manufacturing are expected to form the backbone of India’s future $5 trillion economy and the mission of both T-Works and T-Hub is to serve as a community, a catalyst, and a driving force behind the entrepreneurs that will not only make that dream a reality but propel them into the forefront of global innovation.
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