We are seeing a transformational shift happening in India: embedUR

embedUR is an embedded systems leader, based in Silicon Valley, USA, priding itself on accelerating product time-to-market and reducing engineering risk. Over the last two decades, we have earned an enviable reputation for on-time delivery, and have become an embedded partner of choice for some of the world’s largest telecom and network equipment companies, and silicon vendors.  From residential gateways to IoT sensors to cloud IoT management systems, embedUR solutions are deployed on millions of devices.

Rajesh Subramaniam, CEO and Founder of embedUR systems said, embedUR started in 2004. We started with Wi-Fi-related products for homes and enterprises. Big, new companies became our customers. We also moved to DOCSIS, enterprise networking equipment, etc. We further worked with several chip companies, etc. Growth also started happening. 

We also worked on connectivity for tractors, automotive-related software, etc. We also built software  for management of commercial buildings. IoT has been a big game changer for us. We are now working on AI. 

Regarding the progress in AIoT, he said the progress has been applying LLMs, reducing them, and moving those on to chipsets. We also pushed them to NPUs. They can be targeted to multiple chipsets. 

Speaking about embedUR's edge AI vision, Subramaniam said: "We announced our site, ModelNova, to be the zoo of small, tiny models. Anybody can go in and download tiny models, and use them for different apps. There are models for image, vision, language, etc. We will continue to update our models. Users can create proof-of-concept (PoC) to build a product. Chip companies can also push customers to use our models. 

Next comes accelerating edge computing deployment in the AIoT era. ModelNova is a tool to accelerate development in the AIoT space. By end of this year, our goal is to reach about 100 tiny models. 

Elaborating on the platform-enablement activities, he said that some of the chip companies are our customers. We are able to package tools, and help them collaborate. If you have to run models, we optimize them for platform, and help customers streamline the way, so that they can present that to their customers.

As for new services being offered by embedUR, he stated that we started off as an embedded software company. We have since invested in training our teams, especially, to bring AI to the edge. We also have a strategic partnership with tinyML Foundation. We are tailoring our software to build products around edge devices.

tinyML Foundation is a global non-profit organization empowering a community of professionals, academia and policy makers focused on low power AI at the very edge of the cloud.

Investment in new technologies
Next, we looked at investment in technologies, such as such as AI, edge computing, and IoT. Subramaniam said we have committed investments -- training engineers to be edge efficient. We have capex in buying servers for edge devices. We are also hiring additional engineers. Security of the devices is also very important. We have now created a firm software engineering process. 

We have also committed Rs. 500 crores over the next five years, from 2024-29. This is for all of the above. Our goal is to get to double our employees head count in India by end of 2025-26.

The company's vision for India's role in the rapidly growing global edge AI market is also clear. India has the biggest talent pool right now. The yearly number of engineers, coming out of colleges, especially in Tamil Nadu, is huge. We have had a presence in Chennai since 2008. Lot of the engineers are very good, and they can also be trained very quickly. We also emphasize on soft skills. We can push product development. 

Lot of chipsets are already low cost. We are seeing a transformational shift happening in India. This will be game changing for the country.

On the importance of global partnerships in propelling the growth of smart devices and innovation in IoT manufacturing in India, he added that is the only way we can progress. We can partner with chip companies and manufacturers. This way, you can push the products to the market. We can also develop product categories exclusively for India.

embedUR's role in empowering Indian businesses to compete on a global scale through its optimized model library for rapid prototyping is also big. We are doing partnerships, and optimizing devices for small footprints. We are empowering Indian business to engage in rapid prototyping of products for the Indian market.

Finally,what are the plans to significantly increase the workforce in its India facility, contributing to domestic job creation and skill development? He concluded that the goal is to grow significantly in terms of embedUR's presence in India. We can identify product categories, so that they can be made affordable, and democratized.