TCS takes AI-first manufacturing to the factory floor with new Pune lab

Indian IT services firm Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has launched a lights-out factory lab at its Sahyadri Park campus in Pune, seeking to demonstrate how artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, digital twins and industrial control systems can work together to enable increasingly autonomous manufacturing.

The TCS Industrial Autonomy & Engineering Lab – Lights-Out Factory is positioned as a controlled environment where manufacturers can test and validate AI-led production systems before deploying them in live factories.

The facility houses a fully robotic battery-pack assembly line, which TCS said makes it India's first lab to demonstrate lights-out manufacturing principles. A lights-out factory refers to a highly automated manufacturing environment capable of running with minimal human intervention.

The lab brings together industrial AI, digital twins, robotics, factory control systems and real-time operational intelligence, allowing manufacturers to simulate multiple stages of production and assess how autonomous systems can optimise factory operations.

For manufacturers, one of the challenges in scaling Industry 4.0 technologies has been moving beyond individual automation projects to integrated systems that connect engineering, production and operations. TCS said the Pune facility is designed to provide a lower-risk environment to test such deployments.

The lab will support use cases including predictive maintenance, automated quality inspection, real-time process optimisation, human-machine collaboration and autonomous factory operations.

It also includes digital twin and simulation environments to test factory scenarios virtually, along with vision AI, robotics, sensor-to-cloud industrial intelligence and software-defined engineering capabilities.

“Reducing friction has always been central to industrial progress, and the next wave of manufacturing will depend on smarter, more energy-efficient, and more reliable operations,” said Joakim Landholm, SVP, Commercial & Operations Development, SKF. He said the lab could help industry translate industrial AI and advanced automation into measurable operational value.

TCS said the facility is built around its Human+AI Service Autonomy Model, which envisages enterprises moving progressively from digitally enabled operations towards more autonomous production systems.

“When we think of a manufacturing facility, we picture legacy factories and heavy equipment, that run on intense manual effort. At TCS, we are reimagining those environments and building factories for the future,” said Sreenivasa Chakravarti, global head and vice-president, Industrial Autonomy and Engineering, TCS.

The Pune lab is the latest addition to TCS's industrial autonomy and engineering portfolio. Earlier this year, the company launched the TCS Industrial Autonomy & Engineering Lab powered by Nvidia in Bengaluru, focused on physical AI applications for industrial and mobility sectors.

The new facility comes as manufacturers increasingly look to combine AI with robotics, connected factory systems and real-time data to improve productivity, quality and resilience. For technology and manufacturing leaders, the focus is increasingly shifting from isolated AI or automation pilots towards integrated systems capable of making and acting on decisions across the production environment