India's Richest Man to Expedite Modi's Smart Cities Plan The latest RIL-inked MoUs represent a positive step towards potentially bettering India's economy with a healthy combination of smart innovations backed by smart funding

In a new development which could signal the arrival of India's first truly integrated smart city in Maharashtra driven by the Internet of Things (IoT), Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) headed by Mukesh Ambani has inked MoUs, with global technology giants, worth INR 60,000 crores at the Magnetic Maharashtra Convergence Summit 2018.

This development assumes significance considering the fact that the latest MoUs inked deal specifically with Industry 4.0 which in turn is based on data-driven smart principles. Smart manufacturing driven by the IoT is one key aspect here which could change the way the industrial sector is looked at upon by the technology community.

Who is Mukesh Ambani Partnering With?

As far as the latest INR 6000 crores worth MoUs are concerned, Mukesh Ambani has Siemens, Cisco, Nokia, HP, Dell, and Nvidia as his co-investors. At this point in time it is worth noting that these companies have aggressively been pushing for data-driven models. This partnership is also slated to drive creation of as many as 100,000 jobs in Maharashtra.

Also, RIL has announced that it would set up an exclusive Industry 4.0 facility in Mumbai, thereby indicating willingness to invest in quality research as far as developing next-gen data-driven models is concerned.

Are Latest RIL MOUs Indicators of the First Full-fledged Smart Cities?

With next-gen disruptive models, PM Modi's smart cities initiative would get the much required shot-in-the-arm considering the fact that both data and connectivity play a key role in making lives of people (within these cities) easy. Since research in the IoT-sphere in India has been taking place at breakneck speeds, Maharashtra could potentially witness increased entrepreneurship mushrooming whilst development of smart solutions to address societal issues takes place.

Sectors that could Get Potentially "Disrupted'

Industry 4.0 is known to drive a revolution that would technologically impact diverse sectors like healthcare, retail, agriculture, and manufacturing. Societal impact could be huge here whilst creating newer jobs that would do well to resist competition from "robots'.

Next-gen Smart Cities Come to the Fore

At a time when Maharashtra looks potentially set to give India its first technically-enabled smart city, there are other hopefuls in the pipeline viz. Amaravati – the capital of Andhra Pradesh. The capital is set to be developed through funding amounting to nearly INR 15,000 crores initially raised by HUDCO and World Bank. Total capital for Amaravati is said to be in excess of INR 55,000 crores.

Not far behind is Hyderabad which is now being considered by the technologists as the next "startup destination'. The "silicon valley of India' Bangalore might be a few steps behind in adapting Industry 4.0 considering infrastructure upgradation.

In summary, the latest RIL-inked MoUs represent a positive step towards potentially bettering India's economy with a healthy combination of smart innovations backed by smart funding.