Emergence of Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces as Indigenous Connectivity Resource

In an interview, Ramesh Ramanathan, Director (Technology & Alliances), Tata Elxsi, speaks with TimesTech about how Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces could reshape India’s 5G-to-6G journey. He explains why RIS shifts network densification from hardware-heavy expansion to programmable environments, enabling cost-effective urban and rural connectivity. Ramanathan also highlights the role of indigenous manufacturing, AI-driven optimization, interoperability labs, and digital twins in making RIS scalable, resilient, and globally relevant.

TimesTech: As India advances from 5G toward 6G, how do Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces change the traditional approach to network densification, especially in complex urban and hard-to-reach rural environments?

Ramesh: As India transitions from 5G to 6G, Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces (RIS) fundamentally shift the way we think about network densification. Traditionally, densification meant adding more physical infrastructure – cell towers, rooftop radios, fiber backhaul, resulting in high capital expenditure and deployment complexity. With RIS, we move toward what we call environment densification, where the physical environment itself becomes programmable. By intelligently reflecting and shaping radio signals, RIS allows us to design the wireless channel rather than simply overpower it with more hardware.

This approach is particularly relevant for India’s dense urban environments, where unplanned growth, crowded streets, and high user mobility create interference challenges and limit space for new infrastructure. RIS enables targeted coverage improvement without additional towers. In rural India, where low population density often makes traditional investments economically unviable, RIS helps extend signal reach and improve last-mile connectivity cost-effectively. For a country with vast geographic diversity and ambitious digital goals, RIS offers a scalable way to improve user experience while controlling capex.

TimesTech: RIS are often described as “smart mirrors” for wireless signals. From an engineering and deployment perspective, what makes RIS a viable indigenous connectivity resource for India rather than just an imported add-on technology?

Ramesh: RIS are often referred to as “smart mirrors” because they intelligently reflect and steer wireless signals. From an engineering and deployment perspective, what makes RIS particularly viable for India is that they break away from traditional, semiconductor-heavy telecom hardware models. Conventional radios depend on expensive silicon fabrication and capital-intensive manufacturing ecosystems, which limits local production. RIS, in contrast, resemble Printed Circuit Board (PCB) – or solar-panel-like surfaces that can be manufactured using existing assembly lines in India.

Equally important is where the intelligence resides. RIS derive their value from programmability and software control, an area where India has deep, globally proven expertise. By combining locally manufacturable hardware with software-driven intelligence, India can build RIS solutions ground-up, tailored to its climate, geography, and deployment realities. Instead of importing designs optimized for western conditions, RIS gives us an opportunity to engineer connectivity solutions that account for Indian weather patterns, urban density, and rural topologies. This makes RIS not just an add-on technology, but a genuinely indigenous connectivity resource aligned with Make in India and Bharat 6G goals.

TimesTech: Multi-vendor interoperability is a major challenge in next-generation networks. How critical are real-world interoperability testing labs in accelerating RIS adoption, and what gaps do they help address before large-scale rollout?

Ramesh: Multi-vendor interoperability is one of the most critical challenges in next-generation networks. In an RIS deployment, different components – radio equipment, RIS hardware, automation platforms, and AI layers, often come from different vendors. Real-world interoperability testing labs are therefore critical to ensure these elements work together seamlessly before large-scale rollout.

Such labs serve two key purposes. First, they validate functional integration under realistic conditions, ensuring that solutions tested in the lab can be deployed reliably in live networks. Second, and more strategically, they help build an open ecosystem. India has a unique opportunity to avoid the vendor lock-ins seen in previous technology cycles by promoting open interfaces, published APIs, and standards-based designs. Interoperability labs enable startups, system integrators, and enterprises to innovate across both software and hardware layers of RIS. By establishing these labs domestically, we retain control over data, engineering, and deployment from day one, ensuring RIS evolves as an indigenous technology suited to Indian conditions rather than a closed, imported solution.

TimesTech: AI-driven optimization is becoming central to modern networks. How can AI be leveraged to dynamically manage RIS-enabled environments and ensure consistent performance across diverse geographies in India?

Ramesh: AI plays a central role in unlocking the full potential of RIS because managing programmable environments generates massive volumes of radio and environmental data. AI models can continuously analyze parameters such as signal behavior, frequency response, user density, and mobility patterns to dynamically tune RIS performance and maximize coverage and user experience.

This capability is especially important in India, where a one-size-fits-all network design simply does not work. The country spans humid coastal regions, dry interiors, mountainous terrain, and dense urban centers, each affecting signal propagation differently. AI allows RIS systems to learn from their environment, adapting to factors like weather, heat, and human movement in real time. In practice, this requires a layered AI approach: localized models optimized for specific regions, combined with centralized governance and data frameworks that enable cross-learning across geographies. With strong AI and software capabilities, and access to multi-vendor testing labs, India is well positioned to build RIS solutions that consistently perform across diverse deployment scenarios.

TimesTech: Before operators invest heavily in RIS, ROI clarity is essential. How do digital twins and simulation-led approaches help telecom providers make informed capex decisions and de-risk deployments?

Ramesh: Before investing heavily in RIS, telecom operators need clarity on return on investment, and this is where digital twins play a crucial role. Digital twins allow operators to simulate network changes – such as RIS placement or configuration, before implementing them in the live network. This reduces operational risk and helps validate both capex and opex decisions during the planning phase.

For a country like India, with highly diverse geographies and population densities, trial-and-error deployment would be prohibitively expensive and slow. Digital twins enable operators to model different environments: dense cities, semi-urban clusters, and rural regions, and evaluate how RIS performs under varying conditions. Through simulation, operators can conduct cost-benefit analyses, identify optimal placement strategies, and avoid unnecessary infrastructure investments. This approach not only de-risks deployments but also accelerates the transition of RIS from proof-of-concept to large-scale production. Ultimately, simulation-led planning ensures that RIS investments deliver measurable value while supporting efficient last-mile connectivity expansion.

TimesTech: Looking at the bigger picture, what role can India play in shaping the global 5G/6G ecosystem through innovations like RIS, and how prepared is the domestic ecosystem for deployment at scale?

Ramesh: India has a unique opportunity to shape the global 5G and 6G ecosystem through innovations like RIS because of its scale and diversity. Few countries offer deployment environments as complex as India. If a technology works here, it is likely to work anywhere in the world. This makes India an ideal proving ground for large-scale telecom innovations.

Over the years, India has made significant progress in indigenous technology development, supported by initiatives such as Make in India and Bharat 6G. Enterprises, startups, and research institutions are actively investing in automation, interoperability labs, and next-generation network technologies. With RIS, India can go beyond adoption and play a leadership role in defining how the technology is engineered, tested, and deployed. By building solutions ground-up, validating them at scale domestically, and then exporting proven models globally, India can influence standards, architectures, and best practices for future networks. The domestic ecosystem is increasingly prepared to move from experimentation to deployment at scale.