Working on a different architecture for electricity transactions, says Nandan Nilekani

Nandan Nilekani, co-founder and chairman of Infosys

Nandan Nilekani, the Aadhaar architect and co-founder of Infosys, revealed his latest initiative in Bengaluru, focusing on a new architecture for electricity transactions primarily involving renewable energy sources. Speaking at an event hosted by Zwende, an online marketplace for Indian art, home decor, and crafts, Nilekani discussed the evolving landscape of energy distribution.

Nilekani highlighted a shift from traditional electricity distribution methods—where power generated from large plants is sold at uniform rates. He envisions a future where households will have batteries and rooftop solar panels, allowing them to purchase power during the day when it's cheaper and sell it at night when prices are higher. “Tomorrow, every home will have a battery or a four-wheeler battery, a rooftop solar, and they'll buy power in the daytime, when it's cheap, and sell it at night when it's expensive,” Nilekani explained.

He stressed that the need for a new architecture to support this decentralized model, noting, “Everybody's becoming a transactor in electricity… you need to have a different architecture for that. So we're working on some of that.”

Nilekani is also backing the open-source Beckn protocol, which provides specifications including APIs, data models, reference architecture, transaction mechanisms, and global standards. The Beckn protocol underpins India's Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) and the Namma Yatri ride-hailing service app, fostering the development of decentralised digital networks.

In addition to advancements in energy, Nilekani highlighted the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) to address India's diverse linguistic landscape. “Applying AI in India is a significant opportunity,” Nilekani said. “With language AI, people will be able to speak in their mother tongue through their phones and access the services they need.”

In August, Nilekani said that he is bullish on AI startup Sarvam AI, as it has put the world’s apprehensions to rest and built a small language model (SLM) with two billion parameters.

As part of commercial offerings, Lightspeed-backed Artificial intelligence (AI) startup Sarvam AI launched Sarvam Agents for enterprises, which are voice-enabled and multilingual custom business agents deployable via telephone, WhatsApp, or in-app.

Available in 10 Indian languages, the cost of these voice agents starts at Rs. 1/minute, compared to a human agent costing Rs 10 per minute.

Apart from energy and AI, Nilekani also spoke about the rapid advancements that the country has made in terms of adopting digital public infrastructure such as Aadhaar, Unified Payment Interface, ONDC, etc.