We see significant opportunities for funding telecom, tech R&D in India: Business Finland, ET Telecom
NEW DELHI: Finland sees significant opportunities for funding startups and larger companies in India working for telecom and technology research and development, particularly sixth-generation (6G), and in other areas, said a senior public organisation official of the Finnish government.
“From R&D, I can say there are a lot of funding opportunities between Finnish and Indian stakeholders, whether they are smaller companies or bigger ones. I can say that the money is not the problem,” Pekka Rantala, Head of 6G Bridge Program at Business Finland, told ETTelecom in a virtual interview.
Business Finland is a public organisation under Finland’s Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment. Its key objective is to attract trade, tourism, and foreign investment, and provide funds for innovation in the European country.
The official cited that the Finnish Indian Consortia for Research and Education (FICORE), a network of higher education institutions from Finland and India, is collaborating in the science and technology domain.
FICORE is a beneficiary of the 185 million euro investment from the Finnish Ministry for 2020-24 for the global pilots, as per its website.
For 2021-24, FICORE is seed funding 38 projects in India, including in the areas of wireless technology, AI-ML beamforming, 6G wireless systems, quantum technology, 6G-enabled healthcare and schools, ethics in artificial intelligence (AI), and more.
“We are open to any kind of cooperation, and the areas of cooperation could be software, hardware, and NTN (non-terrestrial networks), or anything under the umbrella of 6G,” Rantala said, adding that there exists a good opportunity to match the expertise of Indian system integrators in the telecom sector with their Finnish peers.
“Finland has been funding about 20 to 25 large companies. The country has been investing about 1.5 billion euros for all those companies and their ecosystems,” the official said.
Rantala stated that there is a great scope for Indian stakeholders to engage with participants in the Hexa-X-II initiative, which is the European Commission’s 6G flagship initiative for research into the next-generation wireless networks.
Hexa-X-II has 44 participants, with Nokia and Ericsson jointly leading the venture as the overall project lead and technical manager, respectively.
India, on its part, released its ‘Bharat 6G Vision’ in March last year, which envisages the country as a frontline contributor in the design, development, and deployment of the 6G technology by 2030.
ETTelecom recently reported that Finland-headquartered Nokia is investing in India’s 6G efforts, having established a joint lab with the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, and aims to help its telco customers Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel kickstart 5G monetisation journey through innovative use cases and applications.
“Nokia is happy to see the 6G vision in India. We need to have global cooperation. So let’s make this (6G) happen together with Nokia and with the Indian government,” Harri Holma, Senior Advisor in Technology Office at Nokia’s Finland headquarters told ETTelecom.
- Published On Jul 8, 2024 at 01:19 PM IST
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