Amarendra Kumar Das, Vice Chancellor of Tezpur University (front row, from left); Kim Chang-hwan, Vice President and Head of Electrification Energy Solutions at Hyundai Motor and Kia and Co-Chair of the Hyundai Innovation Center; Suhendu Jyoti Sinha, Advisor at the Hyundai Innovation Center; Ashwini Kumar Agrawal, Dean of IIT Delhi; Tarun Garg, President and Head of Hyundai Motor’s India Operations; and Bijaya Ketan Panigrahi, Dean of Student Affairs at IIT Delhi and Co-Chair of the Hyundai Innovation Center, pose for a photo at the joint research agreement signing ceremony between seven Indian universities and the Hyundai Future Mobility Innovation Center on the 15th. Photo courtesy of Hyundai Motor Group.
Hyundai Motor (005380) and Kia (000270) are joining hands with India’s top engineering universities to develop core technologies in electric vehicle batteries and electrification.
Hyundai Motor and Kia announced Tuesday that four universities — the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Hyderabad, IIT Kanpur, Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology (VNIT) Nagpur, and Tezpur University — signed agreements on the 15th to participate in a joint research framework with the “Hyundai Future Mobility Innovation Center.”
In April last year, Hyundai Motor and Kia launched the Hyundai Future Mobility Innovation Center, a strategic industry-academia cooperation model, with IIT Madras, IIT Delhi, and IIT Bombay. With the addition of the four engineering universities on Tuesday, the joint research framework has effectively been expanded across India.
Top talent from these seven universities will carry out a total of 39 industry-academia research projects centered on the Hyundai Future Mobility Innovation Center, including new materials research covering batteries and electrification, as well as the development of an artificial intelligence (AI)-based vehicle-to-grid (V2G) platform. Hyundai Motor and Kia will focus on locally tailored battery design and electrification performance development, while also concentrating on cultivating outstanding talent and strengthening future mobility development capabilities. The companies also plan to build a foundation for organic cooperation between the two countries by hosting technology policy roundtables involving the public, private, and academic sectors, with officials from the Indian government and its affiliated research institutions invited to attend.
Attendees at Tuesday’s signing ceremony included Tarun Garg, President and Head of Hyundai Motor’s India Region Headquarters, and Kim Chang-hwan, Executive Vice President of Hyundai Motor and Kia’s Electrification Energy Solutions and Co-Chair of the Hyundai Innovation Center, along with school officials including Karikapati Narahari Sastry, Dean of IIT Hyderabad; Tarun Gupta, Dean of IIT Kanpur; Yashwant Bhaskar Katpatal, Dean of VNIT Nagpur; and Amarendra Kumar Das, Vice Chancellor of Tezpur University.
Founded in 1951, IIT is India’s top-tier engineering education institution, operating 23 campuses across the country and holding global renown through innovative technology research and the cultivation of outstanding talent.
VNIT Nagpur, an Indian national engineering university located in Nagpur, Maharashtra — a transportation and industrial hub in central India — has strengths in applied research areas including EV systems, thermal management, power electronics, and charging infrastructure.
Tezpur University, established in 1994, is a public comprehensive university under India’s central government, serving as a regionally specialized research hub in northeastern India.