India will open the doors to its first dedicated consortium for augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR), and virtual reality (VR) this week.
The ‘Consortium for VR/AR/MR Engineering Mission in India’ (CAVE) will promote the use of AR, MR, VR, and haptics technologies across the nation’s academia, enterprise, government bodies, and startups.
The Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras), which houses 8,000 students and 1,250 administrative staff, will lead the new body.
The Chennai, Tamil Nadu-based institution innovates from its learning campus and research park, and plans to apply advanced research and development (R&D) to AR/MR/VR hardware and software.
CAVE will also take advantage of the incredible minds at IIT Madras, and key figures at the institution have selected India as their first choice for designing XR solutions.
Prof. M. Manivannan, CAVE Coordinator and Department of Applied Mechanics at the IIT Madras, said,
“In this era of ‘Made in India,’ an India-specific consortium for XR and haptics is important to make big impacts”
Indian Cross Reality
The news comes as the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic halted activities across the world, but despite this, Indian startups remained prepared with advanced VR collaboration solutions.
Firms such as HexaFair and Trezi have led the way, with the US Chamber of Commerce adopting the former and the latter completing three rounds of funding, with the latest taking place February last year.
On top of this, Indian AR/VR software developer Veative is gaining industry recognition by offering its training software to students in China via Shanghai-based eLearning vendors DPVR.
The developments follow reports which predict a growth in enterprise adoption of AR/MR/VR across big oil & gas as well as mining countries — including India — granting IIT Madras the opportunity to provide cross-reality assistance and solutions to national enterprises and other institutions.
