According to the chief technology officer (CTO) and head of regulations, Nokia India, India’s manufacturing strength will hinge on how quickly it embraces advanced connectivity, artificial intelligence (AI)-driven automation, and edge intelligence. He said the era of gradual digitisation is over. Factories now need a data-driven transformation that sharply cuts downtime, boosts throughput, and builds long-term operational resilience.
He pointed to global examples illustrating how tightly integrated networks and AI are already shifting performance benchmarks. Meanwhile, industrial internet of thing (IIoT) and edge computing, he noted, are emerging as the next big catalysts across sectors such as pharmaceuticals, where even slight temperature deviations can ruin entire batches. Edge-led sensing and instant automated responses are now essential. Sustainability has moved from a corporate social responsibility (CSR) checkbox to a core business priority. Nokia’s own India plant is progressing toward a 20 per cent reduction in carbon emissions while producing a major share of the company’s global 4G and 5G radio equipment.
He described a structured roadmap for manufacturers starting their Industry 4.0 journey: begin with a clear diagnostic of shopfloor gaps, then build the network architecture around the use case, whether high throughput, mobility, or tight latency. Nokia’s passive optical local area network (LAN) fits wired industrial environments, while 5G private wireless is better suited for setups with heavy mobility. A solid data foundation, including unified dashboards and shopfloor-edge data centres, is essential for real-time reliability.
