Predictions for 2024: Space, AI & Medtech to see breakthroughs

Next year will be the year of not one but three big technologies coming up. If you are looking at the
growth of the Indian economy, and you want the economy to grow at a nonlinear pace, then you will have
at least these three technologies on the cusp of momentous growth.

The first big prediction for the next year is the growth in the space sector. The government has opened the space sector for private participation, ensuring exponential growth in space-tech, in the areas of rockets and satellites. This will essentially form the very basis for India for 6G, which is not just terrestrial communication, but hybrid satellite plus terrestrial communication.


To this end, India requires large number of startups who can make indigenous satellites that will also help find solutions to many societal problems.

Satellite has an economy associated with it, right from weather predictions to a multitude of things
that satellite imaging can do today. We also need rockets, using which one can launch these satellites;
India already has a couple of very good startup companies working in that direction. We need to have rapid launch facilities. And for that to happen, we need a rapid production of rocket engines, etc.

The year 2024 promises to offer an exponential growth in the sector: the journey started in 2023 and
next year, you will see big innovation happening.

The second big thing is, of course, AI wherein India will see a big growth of large language models specific to different domains, capturing the Indian ecosystem.

We may have large language models for other domains too with Indian content. For instance, BharatGPT helping doctors, BharatGPT helping lawyers and BharatGPT helping engineers and so on.

The third prediction is on the medtech sector. You will see massive growth in medical technology sector with more startups entering the sector in the coming year.

India has the potential to be a hub for med-tech manufacturing and is poised to see AI intervention, cyber-physical systems etc coming up in med-tech that will concentrate on how to make technology orient itself towards large scale access of quality healthcare for the poor.

In all these three, I believe that IIT Madras and the consortium of IITs together will play a big role. We are confident that some of our startups will make a big, positive dent in the space sector.

(The author is the Director of IIT Madras)