Transform – Siemens Innovation Day 2026 demystifies industrial AI for Viksit Bharat
Indu Sharma, Vice President, Communications, Siemens Limited, set the tone: “Believe me, no matter how much energy you spend, we will give it back to you.” The day was marked by the opening speech of CTO Dr Peter Koerte, Siemens AG Head of Core Technologies Dr. Dirk Didascalou, President of Electronics and Semiconductors at Siemens AG, Dr. Expert sessions on future technologies by Kolja Zakrzewski and Robert HK Demann, Head of Smart Infrastructure at Siemens Limited, as well as AI factories, simulations, and infrastructure, all supported by live exhibits.
It’s now an empowered VUCA world
Siemens Limited MD and CEO Sunil Mathur recalled how, at the launch of Transform six years ago, discussions on manufacturing, infrastructure and mobility flowed against the backdrop of the “nascent VUCA world”. A few years ago, every issue of Transform focused on manufacturing, infrastructure and mobility and India’s need to move up the value curve to achieve the goals set for the country. “Technology was a critical component at that time, but a lot has changed in the last six years,” Mathur said.
Mathur noted that leaders often talk about operating in a VUCA world, but the last few years have made this reality clear. At the same time, over the last few years, artificial intelligence has become a reality in industrial production, across infrastructure, and in our daily lives. “It is so impactful that the world has changed in the last five to six years at a pace it has never changed before,” Mathur said.
India, an “oasis of stability”, thrives amid global volatility
In this context, Mathur confirmed that India is a “stable oasis” with a gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 7-7.5% and explained that very few countries around the world have been able to sustain this growth rate like India in the last five years.
“When you look at the developments that India has made, first in infrastructure, but also in manufacturing, for example, we have electrified 37,000 kilometers of railway network in the last seven years. This is equivalent to Germany’s entire network,” Mathur said.
He listed the country’s significant strides in infrastructure, including the electrification of 37,000 km of railways in seven years, rivaling Germany’s entire network, and praised India’s manufacturing momentum, the jump in renewable energy from less than 50 GW to around 250 GW, the rise of AI-led connectivity and India’s rise to arguably the cheapest computing power in the world.
“We’re seeing AI and connectivity reach a completely different level. We’re probably the lowest-cost country in terms of computing power in the world right now,” he added.
Together, these breakthroughs signal the promise of delivering on the Viksit Bharat mission’s vision of achieving 8-10% annual growth for a $30 trillion economy.
Performance over the last five years
Mathur stated that, contrary to past announcements, these initiatives have actually materialized in the last five years. Mathur highlighted Viksit Bharat’s four growth drivers: innovation through R&D spending from 0.6% to 3% of GDP (foundation of advanced economy for manufacturing/infrastructure leadership); AI-driven data centers scaling from 1.5 GW to over 8 GW; aviation is growing, with 70 airports put into service in the last 10 years and plans for 50 more airports; This means 1-2 openings every two weeks for advanced logistics; and the number of industrial corridors increases from 4 to 11 for efficiency, logistics and huge capital expenditure.
Sustainability emerged as another key theme in the 2021 Glasgow pledge, with Mathur highlighting the importance of this with 250-300GW of renewable energy already online, targeting 500-700GW, in line with COP26’s 500GW non-fossil commitment. According to National Electricity Plan targets, these developments are projected to double generation and transmission within five to seven years to ensure grid stability in the face of outages. The National Green Hydrogen Mission 2023, pegged at Rs 19,744 million, completes this breakthrough with an annual production of 5 million tonnes by 2030; Decarbonizing steel and fertilizers through renewable electrolysis is key to capex without emissions increases.
Businesses need to pull the levers for productivity, resilience to withstand variability, expected quality, scalable sustainability and security, and balance customer demands through technology alone. As the day progressed, industrial artificial intelligence, digital twins, autonomous buildings, digital substations and advanced grids, as well as secure platforms, emerged as the cornerstone of new technologies.
Koerte’s keynote: Data powers industrial AI
Siemens AG Board Member, Chief Technology Officer and Chief Strategy Officer Dr. Peter Koerte opened his opening remarks amidst cheers from the ‘men in blue’ after winning a close semi-final against England in the T20 World Cup: “I was rooting for you!” Koerte then made a prescient statement: “You’ll have a good day on Sunday!”
Amid India’s rare 7% GDP growth, it traced the evolution from digital trends to metadatabase and industrial AI, covering physical spaces, wide-ranging mobility (trains are vital in India), factories, life sciences, semiconductors, grids and buildings.
Data is the lifeblood of AI: 20 billion smart devices generate terabytes of data per hour, and 80% remains unused today; this fuels connected hardware, edge intelligence, digital twins and real-time simulations. “AI without data is nothing,” Dr Koerte emphasized.
Dr Koerte gave examples of Audi spot welding via cameras at the industrial edge to deliver accuracy and cost savings through software-defined automation; water utilities halve leak losses by 60% with 100 m radius sensor detection; Comfort AI reduces 30% of global energy consumption in buildings, where 90% of time is spent.
India is uniquely poised to reap competitiveness, resilience and sustainability gains from this revolution.
Industrial simulation spotlight
After the opening speech, Dr Dirk Didascalou took to the stage for the first expert session and Dr. Building on Koerte’s data emphasis on sharing actionable insights, he delved into the role of industrial simulation in predictive operations.
Dr. Didascalou emphasized real-time modeling to reduce factory downtime by preventing failures in advance, associated with the increase in India’s manufacturing capital expenditure, and Dr. He echoed Koerte’s prediction for the future that “everything you will see from Siemens… will be connected in some way… build digital twins.”
ET AgendaTechnology horizons of the future
Dr Kolja and Robert HK Demann gave a joint presentation on emerging frontiers such as AI-enabled factories and next-generation infrastructure.
While Dr Kolja highlighted vertical integrations for the production of tomorrow, Robert Demann spoke about the need for secure platforms. Its sessions matched industrial AI with needs at the scale of Viksit Bharat, with ecosystem demos from NVIDIA partners and Adani Technologies customers.
Their sessions moved towards industry-specific applications; AI in mobility, Mathur’s session earlier in the day mirrored India’s bid for rail electrification, life sciences for semiconductors and smart infrastructure like digital substations.
Mathur had laid out the context earlier: “Industrial AI technologies, digital twins, autonomous buildings, next-level grids… you’ll see all of these in action here.”
Closing momentum
With high energy, Sharma reiterated the evolution of Transformation – Innovation Day: “Artificial intelligence from textbooks… has become a reality for businesses.” Siemens’ Transformation – Innovation Day 2026 outlined the blueprint for India’s AI-enabled growth path, from exhibitions that enable applied research to keynotes and deep dives that blend policy passion for India’s sustainability with technology demos.
