Got an AI Solution for Infrastructure? Rodic Consultants and Nasscom Are Opening the Door

India is building infrastructure at a scale that makes efficiency, safety, and resilience increasingly difficult to manage through conventional processes alone. Artificial intelligence has been positioned as a solution to this problem for years, but a gap remains between having the technology and actually deploying it. A model can perform well in a controlled setting and still face very different constraints when deployed across a highway project, a power distribution network, or a public-service system.

That is the gap Rodic Consultants, one of India's leading infrastructure and engineering consultancies, is looking to close with the Rodic InfraAI Innovation Challenge 2026, launched in partnership with Nasscom, Google Cloud, and Startup India. Positioned as a first-of-its-kind national initiative, the challenge is built to accelerate AI adoption across India's infrastructure and strategic sectors.

A challenge built on real projects, not case studies

Most innovation challenges hand participants a hypothetical brief and ask them to imagine a solution. This challenge takes a different approach: every problem statement is drawn from Rodic's live infrastructure projects, giving participating startups, researchers, and academic teams access to actual project contexts rather than sanitized case studies.

That distinction matters because AI adoption in infrastructure tends to fail for reasons that don't show up in a proof of concept. A solution needs to work within existing systems, handle real-world data, and demonstrate value where reliability and scalability matter. By anchoring the challenge in real project environments, Rodic and Nasscom are betting that the solutions that emerge will be closer to deployment-ready from day one.

The challenge is organized around four priority themes, each mapped to a national infrastructure need:

• AI for India Energy Stack builds on the Ministry of Power's emerging digital public infrastructure, addressing challenges such as DISCOM analytics, AT&C loss reduction, renewable forecasting, smart meter intelligence, and grid congestion management.
• AI for Roads, Bridges and Tunnels looks at how computer vision, drones, and edge AI can improve asset monitoring, defect detection, predictive maintenance, and construction intelligence.
• AI for Climate-Resilient Infrastructure focuses on using AI to identify and assess vulnerabilities created by floods, landslides, and extreme heat across roads, railways, and transmission networks.
• GenAI for Public Works and Citizen Benefit Delivery takes on the challenge of access, using multilingual GenAI assistants to simplify how citizens reach public services, government schemes, grievance redressal, and health-benefit programs.

Why the partnership matters

The organizations backing the challenge are what set it apart. Nasscom brings its innovation ecosystem and its reach into India's deep-tech and AI startup community. Google Cloud is also a partner in the initiative. Startup India extends the challenge's outreach to DPIIT-recognized startups nationally, ensuring it isn't limited to a handful of well-networked founders in Bengaluru or Delhi.

"India is at an inflection point where artificial intelligence can fundamentally transform how infrastructure is planned, built and managed," said Raj Kumar, CMD, Rodic Consultants. "At Rodic, we have spent considerable time working inside the country's most complex highways, bridges, tunnels and urban infrastructure programs, and we know exactly where technology can make the biggest difference on the ground. Through our partnership with Nasscom, we are creating a platform that connects India's brightest AI innovators with real infrastructure challenges, not hypothetical ones. Our objective is to identify technologies that can be tested, deployed, and scaled across live projects, accelerating India's digital transformation while building infrastructure that is smarter, safer, and more resilient for the decades ahead."

Ankit Bose, Head, Nasscom AI, said, "Infrastructure is the backbone of India's growth story, and AI has the power to reshape how it is built and maintained. The InfraAI Innovation Challenge 2026 gives tech startups access to real industry problem statements, expert mentorship, and a genuine pathway to deployment. By combining Nasscom's innovation ecosystem with Rodic's deep infrastructure expertise, we hope to accelerate practical AI adoption that delivers measurable impact across India's infrastructure landscape, while giving the country's deep-tech founders a stage where their work can truly move the needle."

What startups actually get

What separates the InfraAI Innovation Challenge 2026 from a typical hackathon is what happens after the pitches end.

There is a Rs 30 lakh prize pool for the top three winners, but the more compelling proposition for founders is the pipeline that follows: a real industry problem, direct access to Rodic's infrastructure expertise, a shot at the Pilot Partnership Program to validate the solution on a live project, and, for select startups, a route toward commercial deployment and strategic investment as part of Rodic's innovation roadmap.

That structure is deliberate. Rodic has spent decades embedded in India's highways, bridges, tunnels, urban infrastructure, water, hydropower, energy, railways, metro, and smart technology projects.

Rather than run a standalone innovation exercise, the company is using that footprint to offer startups something rarer than mentorship or prize money: a live infrastructure environment to test their technology in.

Who should apply

The opportunity is aimed at a broad group of innovators. AI and deep-tech startups can apply, including DPIIT-recognized startups. The challenge is also relevant to academic and research teams, including those working across IITs, NITs, IIITs, universities, and research institutions.

Teams do not need to build something entirely new for the challenge. Innovators with existing technology can also participate if their solution addresses one of the challenge themes, making it particularly relevant for founders who already have a product or working prototype but are looking for a meaningful industry problem and a potential route to deployment.

Why now

For India's AI and deep-tech founders, particularly those working on computer vision, predictive analytics, or GenAI applications, this combination is hard to find elsewhere. Most infrastructure operators are too risk-averse to hand over live project access to an early-stage startup. Rodic's willingness to do exactly that, backed by Nasscom, Google Cloud, and Startup India, is what makes this challenge worth paying attention to.

The deadline to register is September 10, and full details on eligibility, themes, and the application process are available at https://infrai.rodicconsultants.com/ for those interested in participating.