Supported by Startup India through outreach to DPIIT-recognised startups, the initiative seeks to bring together India's rapidly expanding AI and deep-tech ecosystem to develop scalable, deployment-ready solutions for some of the country's most pressing infrastructure challenges.
The Innovation Challenge marks the first milestone in a broader strategic partnership between Rodic Consultants and Nasscom to discover, nurture and deploy frontier AI technologies across live infrastructure projects in India. By combining Rodic's domain expertise, real-world project environments and infrastructure problem statements with Nasscom's innovation ecosystem, while leveraging Startup India's outreach to DPIIT-recognised startups, the partnership aims to bridge the gap between technological innovation and on-ground implementation.
The collaboration is designed to create pathways for promising AI solutions to be tested, validated and scaled across real-world infrastructure applications.
Unlike conventional innovation programmes built around hypothetical use cases, the National AI Innovation Challenge is anchored in real-world infrastructure challenges drawn from Rodic's live projects. Participating startups will gain access to actual project contexts, enabling them to develop practical solutions with a clear pathway from concept validation to pilot implementation and eventual commercial deployment.
The inaugural edition of the Challenge will focus on four priority themes aligned with India's infrastructure needs. AI on India Energy Stack invites innovators to build solutions leveraging the Ministry of Power's emerging digital public infrastructure for the energy sector. AI for Roads, Bridges and Tunnels focuses on applications such as asset monitoring, defect detection, predictive maintenance and construction intelligence.
Climate-Resilient Infrastructure seeks AI-driven solutions to strengthen roads, railways and transmission networks against floods, landslides and extreme heat. The fourth theme, GenAI for Public Works and Citizen Benefit Delivery, aims to improve access to public services and government health entitlements through multilingual AI-powered platforms.
Speaking on the partnership, Raj Kumar, CMD Rodic Consultants and CEO Rodic digital Advisory, said, "India is at an inflection point where artificial intelligence can fundamentally transform how infrastructure is planned, built and managed. At Rodic, we have spent a considerable time working inside the country's most complex highways, bridges, tunnels and urban infrastructure programmes, and we know exactly where technology can make the biggest difference on the ground. Through our partnership with Nasscom, we are creating a platform that connects India's brightest AI innovators with real infrastructure challenges, not hypothetical ones. Our objective is to identify technologies that can be tested, deployed and scaled across live projects, accelerating India's digital transformation while building infrastructure that is smarter, safer and more resilient for the decades ahead."
Sharing his thoughts, Ankit Bose, Head of AI, Nasscom, said, "Infrastructure is the backbone of India's growth story, and AI has the power to reshape how it is built and maintained. The InfraAI Innovation Challenge gives tech startups access to real industry problem statements, expert mentorship and a genuine pathway to deployment. By combining Nasscom's innovation ecosystem with Rodic's deep infrastructure expertise, we hope to accelerate practical AI adoption that delivers measurable impact across India's infrastructure landscape, while giving the country's deep-tech founders a stage where their work can truly move the needle."
The Challenge has been conceived as more than a startup competition. It is a long-term innovation platform connecting emerging AI companies with industry, enabling promising technologies to be tested, refined and deployed within live infrastructure environments.
High-potential startups emerging from the Challenge will have the opportunity to advance into Rodic's Pilot Partnership Program, where selected solutions are validated on live projects before progressing towards commercial deployment. The partnership also envisages strategic investment in select startups as part of Rodic's long-term innovation roadmap.
Rodic Consultants has played a significant role in shaping the country's development across highways, bridges, tunnels, urban infrastructure, water, hydropower, energy, railways, metros and smart technologies. Through this collaboration, the company aims to systematically identify, validate and scale artificial intelligence, Generative AI, hardware and software innovations capable of addressing complex infrastructure challenges, creating growth opportunities for India's startup ecosystem and strengthening the country's position in AI-led infrastructure development.
Nasscom represents the voice of over USD 300bn technology industry in India with the vision to establish the nation as the world's leading technology ecosystem. It has a diverse and influential community of over 3500 member companies, with a network spanning the entire spectrum of the industry from DeepTech and AI startups to multinationals and from products to services, Global Capability Centres to Engineering firms.
Guided by its vision, Nasscom's strategic imperatives are to accelerate skilling at scale for future-ready talent, strengthen the innovation quotient across industry verticals, create new market opportunities, both international and domestic, drive policy advocacy to advance innovation and ease of doing business, and build the industry narrative with a focus on Trust and innovation. Nasscom also continues to champion the need for diversity and equal opportunity.
The Rodic InfraAI Innovation Challenge brings startups, infrastructure expertise and live project environments together, with winning innovators progressing towards pilot deployments and long-term collaboration opportunities.
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