Admiral Krishna Swaminathan. (Photo: MoD)
New Delhi: The Indian Navy chief, Admiral Krishna Swaminathan, on Monday asked industry, startups and small enterprises to shorten the path from laboratory prototype to operational equipment, saying the Navy must keep pace with fast-moving technologies.
He was addressing the fifth edition of Swavlamban, the Navy's annual seminar on innovation and indigenization, on October 26.
Adm Swaminathan said the force’s engagement with the iDEX (Innovations for Defence Excellence) programme had grown sharply since Swavlamban began in 2022. Navy-specific iDEX challenges have risen from 20 to 229, which he put at about 35% of all challenges issued across the defence sector.
The Navy has so far secured 41 Acceptances of Necessity - the first formal approval in a procurement case - with a combined value of more than ₹3,500 crore. Of these, 25 have moved on to contracts worth over ₹1,900 crore.
The Navy chief named artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, robotics and quantum sensing as the technologies likely to shape future naval operations.
He said they should be inducted quickly and turned into practical advantages at sea, while the Navy maintained exacting standards and kept measuring its progress towards self-reliance.
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The two-day event, on October 26-27 at the Manekshaw Centre in New Delhi, brings together the armed forces, industry, startups, micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), academia and investors. Its theme is “Strength & Power through Innovation and Indigenisation”.
The exhibition features home-grown systems in maritime surveillance, counter-drone technology, artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, and safety and operational efficiency. It is also open to the other two services and to security agencies, which can meet developers directly.
The seminar’s organizers say its wider aim is to strengthen domestic supply chains, help young companies scale up and introduce innovators to potential investors.
The Navy wants research and development to follow its operational requirements more closely so that promising ideas do not stall at the prototype stage.
Background
At a curtain-raiser press conference on October 19, the vice chief of the Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Ajay Kochhar, said more than 100 exhibition stalls were expected. He said three documents would be released at the seminar: the Swavlamban 5.0 document, a compendium on technology imperatives, and the Naval Unified Systems, Ethernet and Tactical Utilisation (NAUSETU) interface standards.
Kochhar also said the Navy had issued requests for proposals for four Landing Platform Docks and for next-generation frigates. The seminar has grown considerably since its first edition, from about 800 participants in 2022 to nearly 3,000 in 2025. At last year's edition, the Navy was reported to own about 35% of the 565 iDEX challenges announced up to that point.
