Today was the commencement day at IIT Powai. Alongside IITB was also hosting the final session of the National Task Force on Deep Reserach Centres.
I was really looking forward to spending the weekend at the campus. The IIT Cars picked up guests with six sigma accuracy at Terminal 2, drove them to the well maintained guest house by the lake and then a three minute drive to the Girish Gaitonde building for the conference.
The commencement day is a new phenomenon. It marks the day students complete the academic requirements of their course to commence their professional journeys. The formal convocation happens later in August. It is a time for celebration and family members visit the campus. My graduation year batchmate, but from the Delhi campus of IIT – Sumant Sinha, founder of Renew Power but better known as former Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha’s son was the Chief Guest.
The Deep Research Centre framework is a commencement of a different kind. It is really a launchpad for India into the global deeptech space.
The IIT Alumni Council has launched 20 research initiatives which cumulatively cover all the 64 critical technologies. The aim is audacious – to bring India into the top three posts in each of these sixty four – in under five years.
Today we had gathered to discuss the two most critical ones – renewable power and battery storage. The room was filled with stalwarts – from Padma Sri Ashok Jhunjhunwala of IIT Chennai Research Park fame to celebrity Prof Juzer Vasi rated as the most popular professor of IITB to silicon veteran Milind Kulkarni , semiconductor genius Rohinton Dehmubed and bevy of outstanding scientists. The battery group which convened last week has UDCT distinguished alumnus Vinay Juvekar and IITac Distinguished Fellow Jyoti Joglekar
The conference was followed by visits to the perovskite lab which was started by Prof. V Ramgopal Rao, PhD and then to the engineering physics department.
I was particularly impressed by Dinesh Kabra work on quantum coherence and a camera that takes photos at 25 pico second intervals with 250 nm spatial resolution. The ai enables time series analysis to track the path of a photon (speed of light !!!!). I also got to see a tunnel powered by an artificial sun that can apply suction and pressure to test silicon solar panels in simulated real world conditions.
I am left with no doubt that five years from now, India will beat China in both high quality solar cells as well as battery systems. The Task Force is raising usd 500m as seed capital.
Given that we have a domestic market for Rs 30 lac crores of renewable power and Rs 20 lac crores for battery systems over the next seven years, this does indeed look like a very compelling investment – not just for ANRF and Meity but also for MegaFund.in and strategic investors like Renew.
It is also an opportunity to firm up the funding hypothesis for the other research task forces of the Alumni Council.