Tech Mahindra’s Makers Lab was born out of a question unusual for the Indian IT services industry a decade ago: can a services company build a genuine research and development culture?
The lab, set up in Pune around 2014, has since evolved into Tech Mahindra’s experimentation ground for emerging technologies ranging from quantum computing and blockchain to AI and metaverse applications. “Makers Lab became the entry point for all emerging tech — whether it was AI, whether it was Metaverse, whether it was Quantum, whether it was Blockchain,” Nikhil Malhotra, chief innovation officer, said.
Bringing innovation-led R&D to Indian IT
Malhotra, who leads Makers Lab, said the idea emerged after his stint in the US, where he worked with AT&T’s innovation foundry. At the time, Indian IT services firms were largely focused on client execution rather than proprietary R&D.
What began in a converted kitchen inside the Pune campus slowly developed into a hub for experimental projects. One of the earliest exercises involved engineers attempting to build a sensor-based solution for a man struggling to balance his scooter — an effort that eventually failed but became symbolic of the lab’s culture of experimentation and “first feedback” rather than failure.
Makers Lab is the force behind TechM’s Project Indus, focused on developing Indic language LLMs as enterprises scale use of AI across geographies. The LLMs developed under the project help enterprises use AI-led solutions in Indic languages. More recently, it has been used for ed-tech applications, starting with high school physics.
The lab gained visibility during the Covid-19 pandemic, when it worked on therapeutic molecule research using AI-led molecular modelling. Since then, it has expanded into areas such as quantum communications, blockchain deployments and metaverse applications, including projects with Union Bank of India and British Telecom.
Blockchain, metaverse still hold future potential
Malhotra argued that technologies such as blockchain and the metaverse may have faded from mainstream industry conversation but are far from obsolete. He said metaverse technologies continue to play a role in the development of “world models” and simulations, while blockchain could regain relevance when combined with advances in quantum systems.
Today, Makers Lab is increasingly focused on what Tech Mahindra sees as the next wave of technological shifts: agentic AI, responsible AI, world models and quantum systems. According to Malhotra, the lab’s role extends beyond research and experimentation into commercial deployment. “The job of Makers Lab is to propel with these platforms and research. We feed it into the delivery, and (they) take it to the customer the way they want,” he said.
According to Malhotra, Makers Lab approaches emerging technologies as long-term bets rather than short-term trends. The lab is currently focused on areas such as agentic AI security, explainable and responsible AI, world models and quantum machine learning systems, with teams continuously building benchmarks and research frameworks around these themes.