I've witnessed numerous shifts in the energy industry. However, the current era, driven by artificial intelligence, is truly transformative. From optimising complex operations and enhancing resource management to accelerating scientific research and reimagining business models, AI is fundamentally reshaping how we approach energy.
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- AI-Powered Transformation in the Energy
- Aligning India's energy evolution with resilience and reforms
- Karnataka Annual CFO Conclave 2025
- AI will drive steady, long-term growth for IT and consulting
- The Innovation Edge: Driving the Next Wave of Banking with Agentic AI
- Centre to intensify advance-level exploration of critical miniral blocks
- Digital mining: Transforming the mining value chain
The future of exploration in India will be digital data-led, smarter.
India holds over three million square kilometers of sedimentary basins still to be fully understood. Moving from underexplored acreage to integrated, data-rich subsurface intelligence will be key to unlocking this potential. Digitalisation and advanced analytics are already reshaping exploration workflows — improving accuracy, reducing cycle times, and strengthening cost efficiency. This journey will also demand deeper collaboration. Geoscientists, data specialists, engineers, global partners, startups, and academia must jointly create solutions that reflect India’s geological and energy context.
Equally, we need to empower talent and break silos. The next breakthroughs will come from younger professionals who are encouraged to experiment, challenge assumptions, and innovate with speed. Ultimately, the move from rock to cloud is not just technological — it reflects a mindset shift where exploration evolves from resource extraction to sustainable, future-ready energy development.
India’s upstream story is being rewritten with data, technology, talent, and shared ambition.
Over the past few decades, the finance function has undergone a profound transformation, evolving from a custodian of numbers to a strategic partner that drives growth, insight, and innovation. Gone are the days when finance merely reported the past; today, it is shaping the future.
AI is no longer just a tool for efficiency. It has become the engine powering this transformation. Indian enterprises are embedding AI into their core financial strategies by unifying data across ERP and CRM systems, applying advanced analytics, and fostering a culture of digital fluency. CFOs are using AI and machine learning to move from reactive reporting to predictive and prescriptive insights, from manual processes to intelligent automation, and from a focus on cost control to one on value creation.
As adoption scales responsibly, finance leaders are unlocking new sources of enterprise value while redefining the role of finance as a driver of business resilience and inclusive growth. This transformation is helping position India as a trusted global hub for AI-led financial innovation and progress.
AI transformation is probably easier because there’s now a clear understanding of where it’s headed, how to leverage and extract value from agentic AI and, eventually, autonomous agents. The roadmap is visible. What creates challenges, however, is unpredictability, deciding whether to invest in one sector over another when tariffs, supply chains, and global conditions remain uncertain.
Most banking institutions already have analytics and process automation. The next phase is decision autonomy, where systems learn, act, and adapt in real time.
Banks can consider three key models of AI adoption:
- Smart Overlays – deploying AI agents over existing systems to improve efficiency.
- Agents by Design – re-engineering processes and modernising legacy platforms.
- Autonomous Networks – enabling multiple agents to plan, reason, and act collaboratively.
Agentic AI demands observability. You must monitor how agents behave and make decisions. Decision intelligence must be built responsibly, with architecture, explainability, and ethics at its core.
The G3 stage is a prospecting phase, so there is lower confidence on the critical minerals resources estimation and associated economic feasibility. In case of major minerals like coal or iron ore, miners have had years of operational experience but it is not the case with critical minerals, and hence the confidence level around such minerals resources and the overall economic construct needs to be greater to secure interest from investors.
Moving to a G2 (general exploration) level would significantly improve bidders confidence on the resources estimates, enabling wider and quality participation in critical minerals mines auctions. However, exploration alone will not resolve structural challenges. In cases like the clay-form lithium in Jammu and Kashmir, challenges extend beyond exploration to technical and operational hurdles. Extracting and refining lithium (to battery grade) commercially requires suitable technologies and facilities within India to realise its full value.
Advancing towards sustainability: The emergence of green mining technologies and practices
The Indian mining industry has been embracing greenmining technologies and practices – from electrification and automation to regenerative and water-efficient solutions – to drive sustainablity across operations and supply chains. The star rating system instituted by the Ministry of Mines, Govt of India (MoM) through Indian Bureau (IBM) for implementation of Sustainable Development Framework (SDF) has been working as an excellent impetus in this regard.
A more concerted effort to resolve challenges around efficient resource utilisation by:
- promoting beneficiation of low-grade ore,
- adoption of renewable/hybrid energy sources,
- mine closures as per approved plan through policy guidelines, and
- adoption of global best practices
can drive this mission towards sustainability even more strongly, reinforcing the need for collaborative innovation and ESG integration in mining.
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