Esri India to invest Rs 150 cr in GIS-AI competency centre

Esri India Technologies Pvt. Ltd., a provider of Geographic Information Systems (GIS), on Tuesday, announced the setting up of a GIS and AI Competency Centre at a new facility located in Noida, in which it plans to invest over Rs 150 crores in the next five years. 

As part of this investment initiative, Esri India will augment its team of AI specialists, data scientists, GIS experts, and professionals from various industry domains. This expanding pool of specialised talent will concentrate on creating advanced AI-driven geospatial solutions that tackle the increasingly complex challenges encountered by GIS users.

This investment is intended to promote the wider adoption of AI within GIS applications. The new centre will act as a dynamic catalyst for the company’s emphasis on GeoAI offerings, empowering customers to enhance their GIS and GeoAI capabilities, the company said in a statement.

“The convergence of AI and geospatial intelligence is defining novel innovations in GIS applications. On one hand, Esri’s GIS technology is evolving faster than ever before, with numerous new functionalities and configurable applications. On the other hand, innovations in AI are emerging at a very fast pace. The speed of change is so high that without strategic investments, it will not be possible to lead the transformative use of AI in GIS applications,” Agendra Kumar, Managing Director, Esri India, said. 

“The engineers at this new GIS and AI Competency Centre will focus on the integration of AI into spatial analysis, enabling customers to extract richer insights from complex geospatial data, automate routine processes, and make faster, more informed decisions,” he added.

As data volumes surge and new challenges arise, the capacity to swiftly extract actionable insights has become essential. GeoAI technology has the potential to revolutionise various industries by providing insights, automating processes, and enabling decision-making based on location-specific data at a scale that was previously unattainable. 

Experts believe, the data derived from GeoAI insights can be used to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and support sustainable development in areas such as agriculture, transportation, urban planning, and environmental monitoring.