AI, Video analytics set to take surveillance to the next level

Soma Tah

Despite being best known for its consumer electronics products, more than 70 percent of the Panasonic’s revenue worldwide comes from selling to business, not consumers.The company is focusing on emerging technologies such as IoT and AI to create transformative solutions for businesses in diffrent industries.

The company opened an India Innovation Centre (IIC) and a Centre of Excellence(CoE) in partnership with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) in Bangalore last year. The IIC will focus on three broad solution areas- mobility, energy storage as well security and surveillance solutions. Manish Sharma, President and CEO, Panasonic India said, speaks on the growth opportunities in video surveillance, the company's focus on innovation and India centre's contribution in it.

Panasonic opened a CoE and innovation centre in India last year to focus on B2B solution innovations. Could you tell us what kind of solutions the CoE is focusing on?

Panasonic India is an integral and strategic part of the ISAMEA (India, South Asia, Middle East and Africa) region. After Japan and US, this is the third innovation centre of Panasonic globally. We have the capability to produce transformative solutions and develop differentiated platform that incubates Indian startups, innovation ecosystem and create new business opportunities in the space of Internet of Things (IoT).

The CoE in Bangalore focuses on five key areas- Connected Home/Community, Mobility, Energy, Industrial, and Finance Solutions. This platform will work as a hub that will be central to developing new age technology driven range of products that will emerge from India for both domestic and global consumption in years to come. The CoE is also an extension of our R&D capabilities offering offshore delivery capabilities and simultaneously will work towards designing a smarter future.

As our business is evolving to become sustainable, we aim to drive technological change through Panasonic India’s Innovation Centre which focuses on disruptive solutions such as mobile technology, artificial intelligence, and energy storage.

As the technologies like AI matures further - how will it impact the video surveillance market in India?

Artificial Intelligence is bound to progress further in coming years to become a commonplace. The technology has assisted computers to utilize copious amounts of data in decision-making processes, or enabled these machines to learn on their own. India over the last few years has emerged as one of the most receptive countries in the field security and surveillance, the Indian video surveillance market is expected to reach $8.24 billion by 2022 leading to huge amount of data generation.

A well spread out network of surveillance cameras with AI at the heart of it, will essentially give rise to smart video analytics. Whist some traditional security measures in place today do have a significant impact in curtailing down the crime rate, video analytics on the other hand, with its unique capability of identifying people, will give an edge to security officers that no other surveillance camera alone can provide. Surveillance systems that have this embedded characteristic, can analyze video footage in real-time and detect abnormal activities that could pose a threat to security. Therefore we can say that the progression in video surveillance market in India is directly proportional to the new age technologies like AI.

Could you highlight some interesting projects aligned with govt.'s Smart City or Digital India initiatives?

Panasonic has bagged projects under the government's Smart City and Safe City initiatives. Under the smart cities project, Panasonic India will soon be deploying surveillance cameras in the cities of Bhopal and Ludhiana. Under the safe cities project we have already deployed cameras in the regions of Panchkula and Gurgaon whereas Lucknow is under consideration right now. We’ve also bagged Emami Project in Hyderabad and Tirupati alongside government housing project in Orissa.