Mukesh Ambani is leaving no stone unturned in his bid to diversify from a select few industries like oil, retail and telecom to software and beyond.

SankhyaSutra Labs, a subsidiary of Jio Platforms, showcased software for drone and aircraft design, pitting itself as an option as India liberalises its drone policies and doubles down on defence indigenisation.

Gautam Adani, too, has announced his foray by picking up a 50% stake in General Aeronautics, a drone maker.

Mukesh Ambani has set his sights on the Indian government’s defence indigenisation efforts. After drones, Ambani Senior is looking to enter the critical space of aircraft design through a Bengaluru-based subsidiary, SankhyaSutra Labs.

The Reliance subsidiary, under Jio Platforms, showcased a Made in India software that can be used to design aircraft at the AeroCon 2022 — an aerospace conference organised by the Society of Automobile Engineering.

The company said that it intends to launch a major product in October this year, but stopped short of specifying exactly what it would be about.

SankhyaSutra’s focus seems to be on making it easier and cheaper to simulate aircraft designs. Simulation plays a significant role in all aircraft design, particularly in defence.

Mukesh Ambani is leaving no stone unturned in his bid to diversify from a select few industries like oil, retail and telecom to software and beyond. SankhyaSutra Labs, a subsidiary of Jio Platforms, showcased software for drone and aircraft design, pitting itself as an option as India liberalises its drone policies and doubles down on defence indigenisation. Gautam Adani, too, has announced his foray by picking up a 50% stake in General Aeronautics, a drone maker.

“Accurate and reliable simulations can potentially reduce the need for expensive and time-consuming experiments, such as wind tunnel experiments, used for the design of aircraft,” said Dr. Vinay Kariwala, vice president of business development and SankhyaSutra Labs.

“This opens up several possibilities by making aircraft design faster and cheaper, as well as allowing exploration of unconventional and radically new design alternatives,” he added.

The company said it uses a combination of physics, mathematics and computer science for its designing tools.

Last week, SankhyaSutra also showcased its products and solutions for drones at the Drone Festival of India 2022, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi was also present.

India liberalised its drone policies and lifted restrictions on drone usage and expanded it from just defence to other sectors like — agriculture, tourism, healthcare and more.

The potential of drones has caught the fancy of both Ambani and Gautam Adani - two of India’s richest men. The Adani Group recently picked up a 50% stake in a drone company called General Aeronautics.

Drone company stocks have delivered record returns of up to 160%. All the four listed entities – Paras Defence, Zen Technologies, RattanIndia Enterprises, and Bharat Electronics had gained momentum.

It remains to be seen if Gautam Adani will follow Mukesh Ambani in launching a dedicated defence vertical as India doubles down on achieving Atmanirbharta (self-reliance) in defence.