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Unleashing the Power of India's Smart Buildings Through AI, Skills, and Innovation
Unleashing the Power of India's Smart Buildings Through AI, Skills, and Innovation

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Buildings contribute 40% of global emissions, making them critical to solving the climate crisis, regardless of country or continent. India poses unique challenges with a growing population, a booming economy, and a rising demand for energy and resources. According to the International Energy Agency, India's building sector accounts for more than a third of the country's total energy consumption and is expected to grow by 4.5% annually until 2030. The good news? India is dramatically accelerating climate action. It has shifted to renewables faster than expected, demonstrating a growing commitment to combatting climate change.

 

To help move toward a lower carbon future, India must harness the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to transform its existing and future building stock. Technology that can create smart autonomous buildings capable of operating independently and adapting to changing conditions, rather than relying on human intervention or remote control, is emerging. Today's smart buildings leverage advanced data analytics, machine learning, and predictive algorithms to make decisions and optimise performance over time. This is the key to driving efficiency, enhancing the user experience, and reducing operational costs. 

 

However, new kinds of investments are needed. Investment in people, investment in new skills and investment in innovation. We need to be ready for this boom. One of the most important things we can do to ensure we have the technology we need is to build a workforce in countries worldwide that are constantly researching and innovating.

 

Benefits of Smart Buildings 
Smart autonomous buildings can offer multiple benefits, including:

 

  • Energy efficiency and savings: Smart autonomous buildings can optimise the energy consumption of various building systems and equipment, such as HVAC, lighting, security, and appliances, based on occupancy patterns, weather conditions, utility rates, and user preferences. They can also integrate with renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind, to reduce the reliance on fossil fuels and the grid.
  • Decarbonisation and sustainability: Smart autonomous buildings can help India achieve its climate goals and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Using multiple data sources and AI models, they can provide scenario planning and support for enterprise portfolio decarbonisation. They can also measure the impact of their decarbonisation investments using key performance indicators and dashboards. 
  • Occupant comfort and productivity: Smart autonomous buildings can enhance the comfort and productivity of the occupants by providing a healthy, safe, and personalised environment. They can also offer contactless operations and smart sensing to prevent the spread of infections and ensure security. 

 

The Human Factor in Smart Buildings 

 

To achieve decarbonisation goals, making buildings more innovative and efficient should be a significant focus for the entire value chain. It's good for the planet and the bottom line. The question is, how do we get there? The real need in the future will be reskilling and upskilling the workforce.

 

An essential consideration to embracing AI as an organisation is governance and ethics. Companies should anchor AI ambitions in a robust code of ethics to guide the  use of AI now and in the future. These principles are a good starting point for any organisation that seeks to ensure its usage of AI is as responsible as possible. Rather than being set in stone, these guidelines are open to evolving alongside technology. 

 

  • Empower humans in buildings: Design AI to augment and elevate human intelligence and work.
  • Fairness and inclusion: Develop and use AI to minimise the creation or reinforcement of unfair, biased and discriminatory impacts.
  • Privacy by design: Develop and use AI within a privacy-by-design framework.
  • Robustness, safety and security: Apply robust testing, safety and security practices to minimise unintended results or outputs from our AI systems and to include appropriate human oversight capabilities.
  • Accountability: Be accountable for how our AI systems impact the world.
  • Transparency: Be transparent about when, why, and how we deploy our AI systems and will help our customers and partners do the same.
  • Sustainability: Develop AI with sustainability as a focal point to help buildings and communities become more sustainable.

 

Human-centricity needs to be at the core of any AI ethics code.

 

Embracing the Power of AI

This learning and trial-and-error period is crucial during the early phase of AI exploration. Leveraging insights from experimentation will help build a culture of responsible usage and illuminate unseen impacts on the future of work. AI is powerful, and a lot about it remains unknown. While the industry in the very early stages of seeing its full breadth of capabilities, AI will evolve rapidly over the next one to three years more rapidly than we've seen any platform in human history. Organizations should embrace AI's technological innovations and keep in mind the human element critical to its advancement.

Vijay Sankaran, Chief Technology Officer, Johnson Controls

 

Vijay Sankaran Vice President and Chief Technology Officer Vijay Sankaran is Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for Johnson Controls. In this role, Vijay and his team accelerate and unify product software engineering development efforts, creating common software architecture to drive the enterprise software technology strategy while expanding customer solutions through the OpenBlue digital platform.  Vijay has held leadership roles in technology transformation across a spectrum of industries and, most recently, was Chief Information Officer and Head of Innovation at TD Ameritrade with responsibility for digital strategy, customer platforms, software engineering, technology operations, cybersecurity, data management and analytics, and enterprise innovation. He also held executive roles at Ford Motor Company.  Vijay holds a Master of Business Administration from Duke University’s Fuque School of Business and has a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Vijay Sankaran is Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for Johnson Controls. In this role, Vijay and his team accelerate and unify product software engineering development efforts, creating common software architecture to drive the enterprise software technology strategy while expanding customer solutions through the OpenBlue digital platform.

 

Vijay has held leadership roles in technology transformation across a spectrum of industries and, most recently, was Chief Information Officer and Head of Innovation at TD Ameritrade with responsibility for digital strategy, customer platforms, software engineering, technology operations, cybersecurity, data management and analytics, and enterprise innovation. He also held executive roles at Ford Motor Company.

 

Vijay holds a Master of Business Administration from Duke University’s Fuque School of Business and has a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

 

 


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