Bangalore brains reach beyond IT business sense

Bangalore brains reach beyond IT business sense

The city and its surroundings are becoming an automotive ecosystem

There was a hidden subtext in two back-to-back announcements earlier this week, which celebrated Bangalore’s innovative work culture. Intel showcased its “Made in India” 6-core processor which was designed and developed at its Bangalore Centre. The next day’s newspapers highlighted the first power tool totally designed, developed and manufactured by Indian engineers at the city-based Power Tools division of Bosch, an industrial-domestic blower.

Intel is among a small minority of international Information Technology players who have the self-confidence to reveal that some of their flagship chips are almost wholly the product of Indian brains. Why beat about the bush? Let’s say Bangalore brains.

This correspondent, who has been stomping the IT beat for nearly a decade, is by now used to the obfuscations practised by many global tech companies when announcing, with much fanfare, their latest hardware or software achievements. They invariably have a large India-based R&D operation; but if you ask their visiting executives in what way the Indian end contributed to the product being released worldwide, the usual answer is a pious statement about all their work being collaborations across multiple design teams — and it not being company policy to partition the credit. This of course is guaranteed to maintain the comfort level of their shareholders back home, whose parochial minds would rather avoid the truth that 80 per cent of the intellectual property that fuels their fat dividend cheques, often originates from places like India.

The other trend signposted by this week’s announcements is the emerging truth that there is more to Bangalore’s creativity that IT and BT. The Bosch achievement comes from a company that has been a respected player in the automotive sector. Two months ago, global car parts maker Continental invested Rs. 220 crore in a Bangalore manufacturing and R&D facility. The 800-strong staff is equally divided between the two arms.

Continental is by no means the first international auto player to tap Bangalore’s brains: the Daimler Chrysler Research Centre India is based in Bangalore and its 300 or so engineers work in simulation, modelling, night vision and passive safety systems for vehicles. Karnataka is already home to auto players Toyota and Volvo and both maintain R&D teams to support their vehicle plants.

And while we are on an automotive train of mind, let’s not forget Reva, the electric car from the Maini group, that has put India on the map of eco-friendly transportation. Reva was a product ahead of its time — and dismal support from either State or Central governments (their commitment to the environment is something that springs to life once a year on World Environment Day) — has hitherto restricted its influence to small numbers of users within India. Cannier governments abroad, notably the British, have extended strong incentives to electric car buyers, and Reva under its local avatar G-Wiz, is a respected brand there.

Clearly a new ecosytem is slowly taking shape in and around Bangalore — one that in the years to come might well give the IT sector some competition. The Chief Minister has just invited the Tatas to bring their Nano plant to the State in the event that things don’t work out in Singur. This no longer looks merely like a politically savvy thing to say — but a proposal backed by the sound techno-commercial and innovation environment to be taken seriously. Look south, Mr Tata.