IIT Madras to showcase deep-tech push at Bharat Innovates summit in France

CHENNAI: Seeking to position India’s deep-tech ecosystem on the global innovation map, the Indian Institute of Technology Madras will showcase a range of strategic technologies, research-led startups and indigenous innovation platforms at ‘Bharat Innovates 2026’, an international technology exposition to be held in Nice, France, from June 14 to 16.

Organised by the Union Ministry of Education as part of the India-France Year of Innovation 2026, the event is aimed at connecting Indian technology ventures emerging from higher educational institutions with global investors, industry leaders, research laboratories and policymakers.

IIT Madras will anchor two of the event’s 13 thematic sectors, Blue Economy and Next-Generation Communications, while also presenting 15 incubated startups and a series of advanced research initiatives spanning Hyperloop systems, 5G and 6G technologies, AI ecosystems, port automation and lab-grown diamond technologies.

“The India-France Year of Innovation 2026 and Bharat Innovates 2026 are expected to open new opportunities for collaboration between IIT Madras and French universities, research labs, startups and industries,” IIT Madras Director V Kamakoti said.

He said the institute was looking at collaborations in areas such as 6G technologies, standards development, startup partnerships, technology transfer and talent exchange programmes.

The institute’s participation comes at a time when India is increasingly projecting indigenous research and strategic technologies as part of its broader economic and technological ambitions.

Manu Santhanam, Dean (Industrial Consultancy and Sponsored Research), IIT Madras, said the platform would help demonstrate India’s growing capabilities in deep-tech innovation and research-driven entrepreneurship.

Among the major attractions at the IIT Madras pavilion will be Hyperloop technology developed by TuTr Hyperloop, an IIT Madras-incubated startup that has demonstrated propulsion, levitation and vacuum tube systems at the institute’s Discovery Campus. IIT Madras has been designated as the Centre of Excellence for Hyperloop Technology by the Ministry of Railways.

The institute will also showcase work on invisible laser-based markings inside lab-grown diamonds for authentication and anti-counterfeiting applications, alongside research in diamond-based semiconductors and quantum technologies.

In the telecommunications sector, startups including REIO Systems, Astrome Technologies and WiSig Networks will present indigenous Open RAN-based 5G and next-generation wireless communication platforms.

The Blue Economy segment will feature startups such as Planys Technologies, which develops AI-enabled underwater inspection systems, and Zerocircle, which manufactures seaweed-based alternatives to plastic packaging materials.

IIT Madras Pravartak Technologies Foundation will also present its low-compute Small Language Models aimed at building scalable and energy-efficient sovereign AI systems suited for India-scale applications