Kanpur: Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IIT-K) have announced a strategic collaboration to advance AI-powered urban planning through the institute’s AIRAWAT Research Foundation.
The partnership between IIT Kanpur and TCS aims to address the pressing challenges of sustainable urbanisation by developing predictive and adaptive solutions for Indian cities.
The initiative will leverage artificial intelligence, remote sensing and multi-modal data fusion to empower urban planners with rapid “what-if” scenario modelling.
This will allow stakeholders to simulate and evaluate interventions before implementation, with a long-term goal of building cities that are resilient, equitable and environmentally sustainable.
The AIRAWAT Research Foundation at IIT Kanpur, which spearheads research on urban planning, will work closely with TCS to deliver real-world impact.
The collaboration will enable high-resolution air quality mapping by integrating satellite imagery with in-situ sensor data, along with predictive models to forecast and mitigate urban flooding through advanced land-use and urban growth simulations.
The alliance builds on a decade-long association between TCS and IIT Kanpur, which includes joint research projects, collaborative education programs, faculty development, internships and the creation of an ecosystem for Integrated Computational Materials Engineering (ICME) at the IIT-K campus. IIT Kanpur is also a key academic partner in the TCS Co-Innovation Network™ (TCS COIN™).
Highlighting the significance of the initiative, Prof. Manindra Agrawal, Director, IIT Kanpur, said India’s cities “hold the potential to inspire sustainable urban futures” and that this collaboration would help transform urban spaces into resilient and climate-conscious ecosystems.
TCS’s Chief Technology Officer, Dr. Harrick Vin, noted that the future of urban living lies in viewing cities as dynamic ecosystems.
He emphasised that TCS will bring its expertise in AI, digital twins, remote sensing, and data engineering to “lay the foundation for a new paradigm in urban planning and management, one that is predictive and profoundly human-centric.”
Prof. Sachchida Nand Tripathi, Project Director of the AIRAWAT Research Foundation, said the collaboration is not just about deploying AI but about “building a global model of sustainable urbanisation rooted in Indian innovation.”
He added that the partnership will improve air quality, forecast floods, optimise green spaces, and strengthen governance to make Indian cities more livable and future-ready.