IITs license 5G tech to private firm for Rs 12 Crore

Chennai: A 5G RAN sub-system developed at the 5G Test Bed by the Indian Institutes of Technology-Madras and Kanpur and the Society for Applied Microwave Electronics Engineering and Research (SAMEER) was on Monday licensed to an industry partner for Rs 12 crore, in one of the largest technology transfer deals from academia in India.

The three institutions jointly licensed the 5G RAN technology to Tejas Networks (a Tata Group Company), which will play a vital role in leveraging it for further advancements and commercial applications.

IIT-Madras Director Prof V Kamakoti termed licensing of the technology as an “outstanding example” of how translational research must happen in an inter-institutional, interdisciplinary manner. “This is a great example of how research should translate into a product and then get deployed. I hope a billion users of our country will benefit from this technology,” Kamakoti added.

The 5G Test Bed, which was developed indigenously through a collaborative project involving eight institutes and funded by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in May 2022, and has since been used extensively by industry and academia for testing new 5G products and use-cases.

“This collaborative effort not only complements India’s stride in ground-breaking transformative innovation but also opens up tremendous growth prospects for India’s rapidly evolving telecommunication industry,” Prof S Ganesh, Director, IIT-Kanpur, said.

At the 5G Test bed, the hardware, firmware and software are being developed for the 5G base station in India, which forms the radio access network (RAN) part of the 5G system. The base station is connected to the core network on one side on an IP network and the user equipment (cell phones) on the radio side.

“Every facet of the 5G test bed project has been conceptualized in-house. It showcases IIT Kanpur's strength and keenness for the development of advanced communication technologies in Atmanirbhar India,” Prof Ajit Kumar Chaturvedi, Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT-K, said.

Welcoming this technology transfer, Dr Kumar N Sivarajan, CTO and Co-founder, Tejas Networks, said the development sets a new benchmark in industry-academia collaboration in India’s high-technology sector.

“As India’s leading R&D driven telecom products company, we look forward to translating these cutting-edge innovations and integrating them into industry-leading products and solutions for India and the world,” he added.