AI workload will be a heavily integrated technology aspect of 5G: Sanjay Lodha, Netweb Technologies

Netweb Technologies is the only bootstrapped Indian company offering server manufacturing and other services in Workstations,  Storage manufacturing, and high-performance computing (HPC) solutions. Headquartered in Faridabad, Netweb Technologies has a nationwide presence. The company aims at providing quality tech-enabled services to its B2B clients by leveraging its expertise in HPC, artificial intelligence, data centre computing, private cloud, and other innovations in the core technology space. Netweb has also been felicitated with a reward from the Ministry of Electronics and Information minister Ashwini Vaishnav for its contribution towards making India Self-Sufficient in this Digital Age by establishing servers across India.

Sanjay Lodha, Co-founder at Netweb Technologies recently spoke about the future of 5G in India.

DQ: How big is the Private 5G market and how much do you plan to target?

Sanjay Lodha: Today Private 5G is already being introduced on a global scale. Polaris Market Research projects that the global market for private 5G networks will reach USD 924.4 million in 2020 and will expand at a CAGR of 40.9% during the forecast period  (2021-28), or about 41% growth. The market is large and rapidly expanding, and we are still developing products and solutions for private 5G. Additionally, 5G is still a relatively new technology in India, and its use cases are still being developed. Nevertheless, we are already working on one of its use-cases in Africa, and we should complete our first deployment there soon..

DQ: Who are some of the early adopters of 5G in India? 

Sanjay Lodha: Some of the recent adopters in India are -: 

1. Ports and airports - The investments in the spectrum for use in this use case have already been made evident. Supply chain management has always been a challenging use case, but with ports and airports, it will be much easier to track and move the goods and other essential equipment.

2. Defense - One of the most crucial use cases for Private 5G's early adoption for defence purposes will be its broad coverage, high throughput, and low latency combined with additional security measures. 

3. Retail - Due to the enormous growth of the retail sector, there are additional challenges to further synchronise the challenges of stocking, product movement, warehouse management, and supply chain management. Any such concerns can be resolved for them via private 5G.

4. Manufacturing - This industry was a top choice for Private 5G globally, and it shouldn't differ much in India. While the Internet of Things and robotics will take some time to develop, 5G will be a major enabler of the potential for developing a smart industrial environment. They will become early adopters due to other use cases like conditions-based monitoring (CBM).

5. Hospitals & Hospitality - Hospitals have a lot of equipment that needs to be maintained for crucial requirements, as well as several monitoring devices for patients. Such use cases can greatly benefit from private 5G.

6. Rural Connectivity - The private 5G network will be crucial in delivering excellent internet services in remote locations. For instance, offering panchayat-level internet connections that are quite fast. Low latency and good bandwidth will be provided.

DQ: How do you intend to meet the future, high demand for private 5G?

Sanjay Lodha:We’re working on the various aspects of the technology to have more products and solutions to provide the complete 5G solution. We are focusing on making our products and solutions more India-centric and also on the localization of the products so as the demand comes we’re able to provide end-to-end solutions and products to our customers.

DQ: How has the cloud been at the centre of the telecom industry's digital revolution and how is this industry using smart technologies like High Performance Computing and Artificial Intelligence?

Sanjay Lodha: Aside from a fundamental shift in radio technology, 5G will undoubtedly revolutionize telecom. To support the scope, there has been a significant shift in the underlying technology as well. Cloud solutions for both the edge and the core will be advantageous for a significant portion of these technologies. With on-demand scaling, 5G is becoming more digital and is expanding into new use cases and client groups. In the future, machine-generated data will be the primary source of revenue for the telecom industry. The most crucial element for any useful analytics and insight is data. The base of cloud-based technology with micro services and other technology are just going to make this work, so AI workload will be a heavily integrated technology aspect of the 5G offering that will need to be addressed at Edge as well as Core. 

DQ: Your expectations from the Union Budget 2023?

Sanjay Lodha: Electronics Import is second to Oil and Gas as far as the top two Import heads India tackles. Consumption of electronics is increasing and growing at a nearly exponential rate. We anticipate that the Budget for 2023 will need to further expedite the Government's efforts to solve this issue, which it had attempted to do in a previous budget.

In order to prevent unfair trading practices in the Indian market, we would also anticipate that there should be a fair market for domestic tech companies when it comes to government tenders. The Indian government's Atma Nirbhar project and local consumption in India could both benefit from this.

Importantly, the government should invest extensively in R&D to develop India as a technology hub or fund tech firms to assist the industry as a whole. From the perspective of customs, it is anticipated that charges for imported tech components like chips would be rationalized and exemption notices will be cleaned up similarly to last year.

Predictions towards the initiatives of 5G by the Government: Although the government has some forward-looking policy framework for Private 5G, we will need to keep this Policy framework as simple and well-defined as possible to allow the industry to adopt 5G much more quickly. The government is actively striving to provide water and power to every home, therefore it's time to deploy 5G and Fiber over air to connect even the most remote villages, and eventually every home, with a dependable and high-quality broadband.

Forecasting incentives under the PLI scheme: To ensure that ongoing activity can be maintained, the government has already committed a sizable sum to PLI and distributed it over a few years. But one method to speed up the segment may be to continually evaluate and reward the performer.

Anticipation of the Government to enhance cyber security: Cyber security is a complex subject that requires multiple layers of discussion. In my opinion, the fundamentals include networking switches, which are an integral aspect of any network. A Make in India product in this market will benefit and protect us from the perspective of cyber security. It is believed that it is  one crucial area on which they should concentrate in order to avoid losing sight of it in favor of other cyber security concerns.

Tax breaks and subsidies in the budget 2023 accelerating the establishment of Datacenters Hub in India: The growth statistics are unparalleled, and India in particular is emerging as one of the major sources of world data. From here, everything will develop; perhaps this is simply the start of something new. India must consider localizing such data, hence the expansion of data centres is essential.

India must meet international standards in order to become a hub for data centres. Data centres require greater support and assistance in obtaining dependable, affordable power and connectivity that complies with international standards.