Outgoing Reliance Jio Infocomm executive Sumit Chowdhury to launch Smart City solutions firm

NEW DELHI: Sumit Chowdhury, the outgoing president of Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Jio Infocomm, is starting a new venture called GAIA Smart Cities, a full service M2M telecom solutions and services provider.

Chowdhury is planning to merge three India-based companies operational in the Smart City and Machine to Machine (M2M) space. Chowdhury is currently serving his notice period in Jio.

“There are three companies which are operational and I am brining all of them together. We have got the agreement to join them together and make a much larger company. I have come to do the integration of these companies,” Chowdhury told ET, adding that he has done angel investment in all of these companies, including in the to-be formed GAIASmartCity.

Chowdhury however declined to share the names of these three companies and the funding amount. “Transaction has not completed yet,” he said, adding that the venture is also seeking more funding from some global investors.

All the three companies were founded in India but have global operations. The GAIA Smart Cities, through all the three ventures, has already got eight customers in the country from verticals such as telecom, automotive, entertainment, defence wearables and public utilities verticals. “We have got multiple customers who are already using IoT and M2M solutions not just at city level but at the national level,” Chowdhury said.

The company will also come up with new M2M technologies on electronics. “We already got one team that does M2M technologies and one more team that does software development,” he said.

According to Chowdhury, a Smart City is one which makes use of electronics, communication and information technology to manage infrastructures more efficiently, provide a higher quality of service to citizens, wherein all its players (citizens, local companies and the local government) interact with each other to evolve and improve their quality and quantity of activity.

The upcoming venture will provide consulting to M2M and IoT companies, build applications and solution, offer system integration service and will run network. “It will work like a combination of a system integrator and a telecom company.”

Chowdhury said that GAIA Smart Cities will partner will telecom operators along with technology providers such as IBM and Cisco in the country to offer its solutions and will also build sensor network across the country to support its services.

“We will focus on all non-standard forms of communications that exists. Not everything can be done by a telecom company. For Smart Cities, multiple forms of communications and technologies are required along with multiple forms of connectivity of devices,” Chowdhury said, adding that the company will create serious kinds of solutions Smart Cities that can help in connecting all kind of meters on a common platform and industrial automation which includes manufacturing, supply chain and logistics, along with measuring and tracking vehicles.

GAIA Smart Cities is also looking to work with bigger U.S based technology companies that are partnering with the Indian Government for the Smart City project and help them implement their solutions in India.

Chowdhury had joined Reliance Jio in September 2012 and worked as the chief information officer for the company for a year before moving into a business leadership role, where he was working towards defining and setting up the company’s enterprise business and was leading the company’s efforts in Smart Cities, Internet of Things and M2M communications.

Previously, Chowdhury had served Reliance Communication as CIO for almost five years, after which he joined IBM as vice president and partner in 2010 and served the company for two years.