In this exclusive interaction with CRN India, Sudhir Tangri, Country General Manager and VP, Keysight Technologies, provides insights into Keysight’s strategic focus areas, including its pivotal role in advancing 5G technologies globally and pioneering research into 6G in India. Tangri discusses the company’s commitment to cybersecurity solutions amidst evolving threats and outlines its collaborative efforts with Indian research institutions to drive technological innovation across sectors like aerospace, defence, and semiconductor industries.
Can you provide an overview of Keysight’s business, including its main industry segments, acquisitions, and current focus areas?
Globally, we are a $5.5 billion organisation headquartered in Santa Rosa, California. Our main businesses, both globally and in India, fall into a few categories or industry segments. Broadly, we categorise our operations into two large segments: the communications business and the electronic industrial business.
Within the electronic industrial segment, we have the automotive segment, general electronics, manufacturing, and other segments like healthcare. The communication solutions business focuses primarily on wireline, wireless, high-speed digital, semiconductor business, and aerospace defence. These are the major industry segments where we operate.
Over the last ten years, since we spun off from Agilent to become Keysight, we have also acquired many organisations for inorganic growth and to enter new market segments. For example, our successful foray into the automotive sector came through one of these acquisitions. Similarly, we have acquired numerous technology companies to enter new technology areas. Specifically, in the realm of wireless technologies, we acquired companies like Ixia to build our portfolio of solutions in these industry segments.
We have been leading the 5G market trajectory and enabling our customers over the last few years. We have worked with customers across the entire 5G industry food chain, from chipset vendors to network equipment vendors, service providers, and security providers. We have developed solutions and platforms catering to the entire 5G ecosystem as it ramped up.
Now that 5G is being deployed across multiple countries and regions, we are helping with this technology deployment and have already started working on 6G. For perspective, this is public information but very interesting: in India, we were the first to sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with IIT Madras in late 2022. IIT Madras was designated to start 6G research work in India. We have been working with IIT Madras and many other research agencies, both government and private, in the 6G space. We have enabled Sameer, an organisation closely working with IIT Madras, with testbeds for 6G and terahertz research. Sameer’s charter is to foster 6G research and development in India. We have been leading the 5G forefront for many years and have been working with early adopters and investors in 6G research, continuing to support our customers in this area.
Regarding AI, it is ubiquitous across systems. As a test solution and test platform provider, our job is to enable our customers to adopt such technologies. We did this for 5G and are doing it for 6G. In AI, we work across the entire ecosystem, with wireless organisations adopting AI and component vendors, including memory vendors. When implementing an AI accelerator, you need to address memory and various solutions to enable AI adoption in end systems. We are developing multiple solutions across this spectrum, some in mature stages and others in initial stages. Components like memory and cabling are changing due to AI adoption and the high data rates it drives. We work with all key players in the AI ecosystem, which is larger than any wireless technology ecosystem.
How has your growth in the Indian market been over the past couple of years, and which business segment—wireless or communications—has contributed more?
The Indian market has been growing at a very rapid pace over the last decade or so. We attribute this to the overall economic situation in our country. Practically all segments have been growing for us, but certain segments have been growing at a faster rate than others. I can clearly say that the wireless segment has outgrown others in terms of year-over-year growth percentages. The next segment that follows is the high-speed digital or semiconductor business.
These two businesses have experienced much higher than average growth. As I mentioned, we have been growing consistently over the last 10 years, and we expect this trend to continue because the industry is just opening up. We are also witnessing significant growth in the aerospace defence segment. We are currently working with the government on aerospace defence, collaborating with both government agencies and private players due to the ongoing defence privatisation driven by government policies. We are working across the entire spectrum.
of aerospace defence. Government, defence primes, defence manufacturing, defence R&D.
Are you channel-focused?
One is what we call value products, and then we have a set of products that we call performance products. The value products are typically sold through channel partners, and we have very strong channel networks in India, across Asia, and worldwide to sell these value products.
If we want to ask you to quantify the percentage of your business through the channel in India, can you quantify that?
I would say the majority of the business is direct. These are all high-end solutions, but a good percentage of our business is indirect.
So, the way to look at it is, you know, when you say percentages, I will answer your question differently. There are two perspectives here. As I said, we sell value products through channel partners, which are fundamentally products where you need a lot of coverage across the geography. A value product is a product where a customer in a tier 2, tier 3, or tier 4 city might also need it.
Now, high-performance products are not in such high demand. Only the high-end people who are working in high-end research and high-end R&D would need the high-performance products. So the coverage requirements of high-performance products are much lesser from a geographical standpoint.
If you look at it from a dollar standpoint, the channel business might appear smaller than the direct business. But from a unit standpoint or the volume of products sold, the channel business is much higher. The absolute dollar value versus the quantity or the count of products sold is opposite in both businesses.
How has your partners’ growth been in recent years?
We have been growing for the last 10 years in this country— so have the channel partners. There are many incentives and training programs for them. We keep coming out with programs depending on the market objectives that we have together with the channel partners, so we continue to roll out programs for them.
How has the rollout of 5G technologies in India progressed, and is India ready for 6G infrastructure wise?
As we speak, the 5G rollout is happening, and as expected, it is occurring in dense urban areas where the data requirements are increasing. The reality, as I see it, is that this is inevitable because the data consumption of the average individual is exponentially increasing every day. If you look at ten years ago, the type of phone and data consumption you had versus now—ten years is a very long time, almost like a generation. Even if you compare just two years ago, the data consumption of an average individual has increased significantly, and it is not stopping. It continues to rise.
We are talking about how content has become democratised through social media platforms and OTT services. This trend will undoubtedly persist for many years. Therefore, data consumption is going to keep increasing, whether at the same pace or slightly slower, but it will continue to rise. As data consumption increases, operators must not only provide that data but also find ways to monetise it. Technologies like 5G and, hopefully, 6G will offer more monetisation options to operators. This creates a kind of flywheel effect that will keep turning, based on our view.
So what is the progress of the research on 6G technologies?
I would say we’re in the initial stages. The government’s charter is to ensure that our country doesn’t lag behind in 6G adoption. If you look back 20 years, we’ve been slow to adopt 3G and 4G technologies, consistently trailing global players. Even with 5G, we’re catching up, but there’s still ground to cover. Now, with 6G, the government’s vision is clear: to stay ahead in adoption, leveraging its potential beyond what 5G offers, particularly in sectors like agriculture, providing practical solutions for everyday Indian needs. The target, as we understand, is 2030, five years from now. We’re currently identifying which use cases make the most sense for India. Do you have any updates on 6G research progress in other countries? Well, everyone is still in the early stages of development. I don’t have specific insights into their programs, but much like institutions such as IITs and agencies in India, counterparts abroad are also actively engaged in 6G research.
What cyber security challenges Indian organisations face and how do you address these threats through your solutions?
Cyber threats are a reality right now. If you just look at the public information over the last few years, you’ll see so many incidents. A lot of things have happened. So where Keysight comes to the rescue is with our cybersecurity solutions. We have a platform called Cyber Range. Right now, there are two challenges that people are struggling with. One is real cyber attacks, and the second problem is the lack of manpower in this domain. It’s an emerging field, and there aren’t enough trained professionals to manage or implement these solutions. Keysight is addressing both domains. Firstly, we offer cybersecurity solutions like Cyber Range, which people can implement today to ensure state-of-the-art security. Organisations can integrate our platforms into their systems for enhanced security. Secondly, we provide solutions for training manpower. We work with CIOs of various organisations and IT enterprises to position these solutions, enabling our customers to manage cyber attacks and train their teams effectively.
Are companies lagging behind in investing in security compared to their investments in AI adoption?
Well, it’s lagging. I think it depends on the use case and the monetisation strategy of the companies. I think right now there is more happening on the AI side of things.
How is Keysight integrating GenAI in its product development lifecycle and its solutions?
Keysight is integrating AI in several ways, from providing tools specifically designed for growing markets that are fuelled by AI, through to applying AI in our test automation solutions to improve customer productivity. In addition, we are leveraging AI within our own operations to enhance research and development amongst our manufacturing teams. AI is deeply embedded throughout the entire product development lifecycle.
What is the roadmap for Keysight’s channel partners in India?
Keysight supports several industries including commercial communications such 5G and WiFi, aerospace and defence, semiconductor, photonics, and high-speed digital communications, automotive, wireline, network, and security testing as well as next generation technologies like quantum. Keysight has the industry’s best team of experts to support its customers and the company also works closely with an excellent chain of channel partners throughout the country to ensure its solutions are leveraged across all the segments. Keysight works in tandem with its partners, providing rich technology and test experiences to customers in India and across the world.
Which current market areas and trends do you plan to capitalise on?
Apart from those I’ve already mentioned, the government is heavily promoting the Make in India initiative. We would like to capitalise on that. When I talk about Make in India, it covers a wide range of sectors—from aerospace and defence to semiconductors and wireless technologies.