Emergence AI to hire 500 researchers at new India AI lab

Bengaluru: Emergence AI, the New York-based frontier agentic AI company founded by three Indian-American scientists from IBM Research, has launched Emergence India Labs (EIL) to develop autonomous AI agents.

The lab aims to accelerate the creation of next-generation autonomous systems capable of operating mission-critical digital and physical infrastructure, positioning India to move beyond its traditional IT services model toward advanced manufacturing, logistics and industrial automation.

EIL is expected to scale to 500 research scientists and engineers over the next three to four years.

Located near the Indian Institute of Science (IIsc) in Bengaluru, the lab will collaborate closely with the IISc ecosystem through joint research programmes, academic exchanges, hackathons and summer schools to build a next-generation talent pipeline in autonomous systems. Siddhartha Gadgil of IISc will join as chief scientist while retaining his academic affiliation.

The lab will be led by internationally recognised scientists including Prasenjit Dey (PhD, EPFL; IIT Delhi), who will lead operations in India, Ravi Kokku (PhD, UT Austin; IIT Kharagpur), and professor Gadgil (PhD, Caltech; Indian Statistical Institute).

Unlike many multinational R&D centres that operate as satellite extensions of overseas headquarters, Emergence India Labs is conceived as a core, AI-native R&D hub in India, aimed at anchoring sovereign AI capabilities.

“We believe the most immediate opportunity lies in building autonomous AI systems capable of operating the world’s most mission-critical digital infrastructure—from financial networks and telecom platforms to cloud and digital public systems,” said Satya Nitta, co-founder and CEO of Emergence.

“For more than two decades, India’s technology sector has been anchored in IT services,” Nitta added. “The next chapter must be defined by building frontier autonomous systems that power critical infrastructure. The hardest problem in robotics isn’t movement—it’s thinking. By focusing on agentic systems, we are solving reasoning under uncertainty. Around the world, leading economies are embedding AI into physical systems at scale. India must participate fully in shaping that transformation.”

Professor Gadgil said India has the potential to lead this emerging frontier. “Driven by a rich scientific tradition and a dynamic generation of engineers and entrepreneurs, India can play a defining role. By anchoring the entire spectrum of innovation here in Bengaluru—from foundational research to real-world applications—we aim to catalyse an ecosystem of sustained, world-class breakthroughs and help architect the future of intelligent systems.”