Under his leadership, GAIL has successfully launched several pioneering HR transformation initiatives aimed at building a future-ready, inclusive workforce. These flagship programs include ” GAIL Abha” (an entrepreneurship initiative for employee spouses), AI “ Tarang “ (driving company-wide AI adoption), “Spandan “ (promoting holistic employee well-being), and “ Manthan  “ (an internal innovation and suggestion scheme). This recognition stands as a testament to Shri Gupta’s exemplary leadership and underscores GAIL’s unwavering commitment to nurturing talent and empowering its people.

GAIL #Leadership #HRTransformation #PeopleFirst #Innovation #ArtificialIntelligence #EmployeeWellbeing #FutureOfWork #TalentDevelopment #CorporateLeadership #Sustainability #IndiaEnergy #EnergizingPossibilities

Mumbai/Gurugram, India, June 1, 2026 — Black Box Limited (BSE: 500463 | NSE: BBOX), a leading global digital infrastructure integrator, and AIONOS, an AI-native enterprise technology company, today announced a strategic alliance to help enterprises accelerate AI transformation; from infrastructure build-out to measurable business outcomes.

The alliance combines Black Box’s expertise in digital infrastructure, including data centers, network connectivity, modern workplace solutions, and managed services, with AIONOS’s applied AI platforms and domain-led solutions, enabling organizations to build, deploy, and manage AI with security and resilience embedded at every layer.

CP Gurnani, Co-Founder & Vice Chairman, AIONOS said, “India is at an extraordinary inflection point. We are not just consuming AI, we are building it, exporting it, and setting the agenda for how the world deploys intelligent technology at scale. This alliance between AIONOS and Black Box is a direct expression of that belief. Black Box brings the digital infrastructure engine spanning data centers, enterprise networks, and IoT across 35+ countries, and together we cover the entire journey from the physical layer to the AI application layer.”

The two companies will jointly collaborate in developing industry-focused solutions and expanding go to-market opportunities across India, North America, EMEA, and APAC. In India, a key focus area will be the rapidly expanding Global Capability Centre (GCC) ecosystem, where the alliance is uniquely positioned to help GCCs build AI-ready infrastructure, deploy enterprise-grade AI solutions, and create intelligent, scalable operations that integrate seamlessly with their global parent organizations.

“AI transformation begins with a strong digital foundation, and Black Box enables that foundation through mission-critical infrastructure, connectivity, and managed services that power enterprise operations worldwide. Combined with AIONOS’s applied AI platforms and domain expertise, we can help organizations move from AI ambition to AI at scale, connecting infrastructure, operations, and intelligence to create measurable business value.” said, Sanjeev Verma, President & CEO, Black Box.

What Enterprises Gain Through This Alliance 

For enterprises, this alliance delivers a unified approach to AI adoption across the full technology stack, from digital infrastructure and OT/IoT connectivity to industry-specific AI solutions, with security, resilience, and governance built into every layer. Every engagement is anchored in measurable business outcomes, including productivity improvements, cost optimization, revenue growth, and competitive differentiation, delivered through a single, globally capable, end-to-end alliance.

“Enterprises do not need more AI ambition. They need a partner who can make AI real across their entire business. That is exactly what this alliance is built for. AIONOS brings the AI platform, data capabilities, and vertical intelligence. Black Box brings the global infrastructure and delivery scale. Together, we give enterprises a single, accountable partnership that owns the transformation journey, from infrastructure to intelligence, from strategy to outcomes.”, concluded, Simmi Dhamija, Chief Operating Officer, AIONOS.

Hyderabad, 22 May 2026: Octave, in partnership with IIIT Hyderabad and HYSEA, successfully hosted the May 2026 edition of the HYSEA TechForward Series on Friday, 22 May 2026, at Octave’s office in HITEC City, Hyderabad.  The 23^rd edition of TechForward, an industry-research monthly talk series, brought together a curated group of over two hundred industry leaders, academic researchers, enterprise technologists, and AI practitioners to deliberate on one of the most critical enablers of Industrial AI adoption – data readiness at scale.

Themed “Industrial AI: The Data Challenge”, the seminar focused on AI-ready data foundations, under the guiding tagline: “What it takes to get industrial data into a state where AI delivers reliable value.” The discussions highlighted how Industrial AI success is increasingly determined not just by algorithmic sophistication, but by the quality, structure, governance, and contextual integrity of underlying industrial data systems.

Across the seminar session and roundtable discussions, participants examined the persistent challenges faced by industrial enterprises, including fragmented and siloed data landscapes, legacy OT-IT integration barriers, inconsistent data standards, limited contextual labeling of machine and process data, and the difficulty of scaling AI pipelines across heterogeneous operational environments. The dialogue also emphasized that without strong data engineering and governance frameworks, AI deployments in industrial settings risk becoming brittle, non-replicable, or difficult to scale across business units.

The event was chaired by Sekhar Konidena, Vice President – Product and Services, Octave, who spoke on Octave’s work in solving real-world industrial challenges. Industry perspective on AI deployment and data transformation was provided by Suresh Kadambari, Vice President – Product Development, Octave, joined by colleague Srinivas Mallepally.

The academic keynote was delivered by Prof. Vineet Gandhi, Associate Professor at IIIT Hyderabad. His address underscored the intersection of research and industry needs in building robust, generalizable AI systems for complex industrial environments, with particular emphasis on data-centric AI approaches and the importance of structured representations of real-world industrial signals.

Speaking at the event, Sekhar Konidena, Vice President – Product and Services, Octave said, “Industrial AI is not primarily an algorithm challenge—it is a data challenge. The organizations that scale AI successfully will be those that build unified, trusted, and continuously evolving data foundations, treating data with the same strategic rigor as their core industrial operations. Industry-academia collaborations like this are essential to defining what truly AI-ready enterprises look like in practice”.

Adding to this, Suresh Kadambari, Vice President – Product Development at Octave, said, “Industrial AI is constrained less by model sophistication and more by the maturity of the underlying data ecosystem. Large-scale enterprises require structured, context-aware, and interoperable data foundations supported by embedded governance, domain-aligned architecture, and continuously refined data operations. Only through resilient and intelligently managed data infrastructure can AI progress from experimental capability to dependable enterprise-grade industrial intelligence.”

Prof. Ramesh Loganathan, Professor & Dean of Research/Innovation Outreach, IIIT Hyderabad said, “As the IT industry moves up the value chain, intensifying the engagement between industry and academic research is a critical need. This TechForward seminar series is an attempt at seeding these conversations, which is why this is a travelling series.” He noted that bridging the gap between academic research and industrial deployment requires sustained collaboration, particularly in the areas of data-centric AI design, robust annotation strategies, and domain-aware model development for industrial applications.

The HYSEA TechForward Series continued to serve as a strategic platform for fostering collaboration between academia, industry, and innovation ecosystems. Flt Lt. Bipin Pendyala, President, HYSEA, said, “Tech Forward has evolved into a strong platform that brings together industry, academia, and startups to shape conversations around emerging technologies. Over the past two years, the series has successfully connected research, innovation, and enterprise needs to address real-world business challenges. As AI reshapes the global technology landscape, Hyderabad is uniquely positioned to lead with its strong enterprise ecosystem, research depth, and innovation culture. We thank Octave for partnering with us for the May 2026 edition and contributing to the vision of building AI-ready industrial and enterprise ecosystems.”

The May 2026 edition saw strong participation from technology leaders, enterprise architects, members of Hyderabad’s deep-tech ecosystem and students, reinforcing the city’s growing role as a hub for industrial AI innovation and digital transformation.

INDIA, August 21, 2025 – Honeywell (Nasdaq: HON) today released its Global Retailer Technology Survey, which found that India’s major retailers are fully invested in artificial intelligence (AI) and its potential to make operations more efficient. Almost all (96%) in-country retailers said they are using AI, with plans to either expand in the near future or maintain current usage of the technology, as compared to 85% globally.

The survey also highlights how Indian retailers are using AI, from smarter inventory and demand forecasting to enhanced customer service and optimized last-mile delivery.

·         Retailers in India said demand planning (50%), customer experience (41%) and logistics and distribution centers (41%) were the business areas that stand to benefit most from AI and digitization.

·         Survey respondents in India attributed more value to AI for demand planning and supply chain logistics than other regions did (+14% and +7%, respectively, from the global average).

·         By contrast, fewer retailers in India than in other regions said AI had the potential to improve procurement activities (20% in India vs. 28% globally).

“Retailers are looking to AI to better understand what their customers want and how to best meet their needs in a constantly changing market,” said Ritwij Kulkarni, General Manager, Industrial Automation, Honeywell India. “In a country as large and diverse as India, AI has tremendous potential to create hyper-personalized customer experiences and optimize the flow of retail goods throughout the supply chain so they reach shoppers in the most efficient way.”

Other advanced technologies are making a significant impact on the retail landscape in India, with a majority of retailers already invested in machine and camera vision (CV) technologies (68%) and optical character recognition (OCR) (64%). While less common overall, augmented reality (AR) is also gaining traction, in use by 39% of surveyed Indian retailers.

OCR can significantly speed up retail workflows when replenishing the shelf inventory or identifying mislabeled prices by quickly reading labels and other product information. CV can help mitigate the growing challenge with retail shrinkage, while AR can help shoppers or employees visualize a product in a space.

While the results showed overall continued momentum for AI, Indian retailers expressed some concerns about its adoption.

·         Nearly half of respondents (48%) anticipated that the greatest challenge for future AI implementation in the industry would be customer acceptance, compared with 40% globally—suggesting there is an opportunity for Indian retailers to demonstrate to customers the benefits AI can bring.

·         Other top challenges for in-country retailers in implementing AI were regulatory compliance (43%) and complexity of AI models (38%).

Honeywell’s Global Retailer Technology Survey focused on large retailers throughout the U.S., Europe, Latin America, India and the Middle East and how they are using advanced technologies throughout their operations, including AI, automation, augmented reality, machine vision and sensors. Indian retailers participating in the survey had a minimum annual revenue of $10 million USD.

To learn more about the survey results and how Honeywell technologies are helping to shape the new retail era, please visit https://automation.honeywell.com/us/en/industries/retail.

Methodology

Honeywell commissioned Wakefield Research to conduct the Global Honeywell Retailer Technology Survey in May 2025. This Omnibus survey polled 450 executives at large retailers about their use of AI and other technologies via an email invitation and online survey. The following markets are represented in survey data: the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Brazil, India, United Arab Emirates and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The threshold of “large” retailer varied by country, ranging from a minimum annual revenue of $100 million in the U.S. to minimum annual revenue of $5 million in the UAE and KSA.