Vice President & Head of Delivery, ALTEN India
In this exclusive interview, Vaishali Umredkar, Editor of Semiconductor For You speaks with Pramod Nanjundaswamy, Vice President and Head of Delivery at ALTEN India, on how engineering, software, and AI are redefining the automotive landscape. The conversation explores ALTEN India’s role in enabling EVs, software-defined vehicles, and advanced automotive electronics, while addressing localization challenges, functional safety, and future-ready mobility platforms shaping India’s automotive transformation.
What does your role at ALTEN India involve, and how do you shape the company’s automotive business strategy?
The automotive industry is undergoing its most profound transformation in decades -shifting from mechanically driven platforms to software-led, connected, and sustainable mobility. At ALTEN India, my role is centered on helping our customers navigate this shift with speed, scale, and confidence.
As Vice President and Head of Delivery at ALTEN India, I lead delivery across industries, with automotive being a core strategic focus. ALTEN India plays a dual role – we are both a global engineering hub for the ALTEN Group and a trusted partner to local automotive customers, delivering advanced engineering and IT services across the automotive value chain.
For our global business, we provide market, customer, technology, competitive and talent intelligence that helps shape long-term automotive growth strategies. We enable scalable onsite–offshore delivery models that combine cost efficiency with speed, resilience and access to specialized talent at scale. Our technology focus spans software-defined vehicles, electrification, ADAS and autonomous systems, connectivity, embedded software, cloud platforms, data engineering, and AI-driven engineering.
For the local automotive ecosystem, we drive solutioning, thought leadership and future-ready talent development. Our teams bring strong global exposure in areas such as EV powertrains, battery management systems, vehicle electronics, cybersecurity, digital manufacturing, and PLM/ALM transformation, while remaining closely aligned with local regulatory and market needs.
At a strategic level, our ambition is clear: to make ALTEN India a value-creation engine for automotive customers—helping them transition to software-led, connected, and sustainable mobility while positioning ALTEN as a long-term innovation partner.
How would you define ALTEN’s automotive business in India amid rapid shifts toward EVs and software-defined vehicles?
ALTEN’s automotive business in India is shaped by two powerful and converging forces.
First, the strong growth of the local automotive market is accelerating localization and technology adoption, creating significant opportunities for engineering-led innovation. We are working closely with almost all major OEMs as they transition toward electric vehicles, software-defined vehicles and autonomous and assisted driving—supporting them with faster localization, platform adaptation and customer-centric engineering tailored to Indian user expectations and operating conditions.
Second, global OEMs are increasingly expanding their outsourcing footprint to India to accelerate the adoption of next-generation automotive technologies. India has become a strategic hub for software, electronics and AI led digital engineering, enabling faster innovation cycles, access to specialized talent and scalable delivery. Together, these dynamics position ALTEN India as a key enabler and a trusted partner for both local and global automotive transformation in the EV, SDV and Autonomous era.
Which automotive electronics trends will most strongly influence vehicle platforms in the coming years?
Software-defined vehicles will be the most transformative force shaping future vehicle platforms. Electrified, safe and secure, sustainable, connected, and hyper-personalized vehicles will define the next generation of mobility, with software becoming the primary differentiator across the vehicle lifecycle.
From an engineering perspective, AI-led automation, model-based systems engineering (MBSE), digital twins, and virtualization-driven validation are redefining how vehicles are architected, tested, and scaled, enabling faster development cycles and improved quality in increasingly complex systems.
Architecturally, the transition to centralized and zonal compute platforms, supported by high-speed networks and standardized vehicle operating systems, is simplifying vehicle electronics and enabling OTA-ready, scalable architectures.
On the user experience and connectivity front, multi-modal HMI—incorporating AR/VR, voice, gesture, and gaze—along with 5G, emerging 6G, and V2X technologies are enabling immersive, context-aware and cooperative mobility experiences.
Advances in sensors, next-generation power electronics, in-cabin intelligence, and edge AI—combined with cybersecurity-by-design and functional safety—are enhancing vehicle performance, safety and reliability.
Finally, sustainability-driven engineering, supply-chain diversification, and data-centric vehicle platforms are shaping resilient, future-ready automotive ecosystems.
Where is ALTEN seeing the highest demand across its automotive electronics and engineering portfolio?
ALTEN is seeing the strongest demand in electric and software-defined vehicle programs, particularly for software-centric capabilities on the edge, such as model-based engineering, embedded software, hardware design, middleware, vehicle operating systems and AI-led automation across development and validation environments including MIL, SIL and HIL. This is complemented by growing demand for digital technologies such as cloud platforms, data analytics, visualization and virtualization, which are increasingly embedded across engineering, validation, and lifecycle operations.
Alongside this, vehicle design, computer-aided engineering (CAE), and system integration and validation continue to see sustained demand, driven by ongoing model launches and platform refreshes across both global and local OEMs.
In addition, localization-led value engineering, supply-chain–aligned programs, and digital manufacturing initiatives are gaining momentum as OEMs focus on cost competitiveness, faster industrialization and lifecycle efficiency.
How is ALTEN leveraging AI to enhance automotive electronics development and system performance?
ALTEN applies AI across the automotive engineering to enhance user experience, improve productivity, and accelerate time to market.
At the vehicle edge, AI enables hyper-personalized user experiences through intelligent HMI, driver behaviour learning and context-aware features, while also supporting ADAS and autonomous vehicle development through edge-based computation.
Across the engineering lifecycle, ALTEN applies AI to software development, model-based engineering and automated validation across MIL, SIL, and HIL environments, improving efficiency, quality, and development speed. AI is also used in project and delivery management to enhance planning accuracy, risk prediction, and execution predictability.
Beyond development, ALTEN leverages AI in aftermarket and service engineering for intelligent diagnostics, predictive maintenance, automated documentation, and AI-driven customer support, as well as in manufacturing for vision-based inspection, process optimization, and intelligent factory operations.
ALTEN is continuously embedding AI into its solutioning and delivery frameworks through reusable AI accelerators. In parallel, ALTEN’s strategic partnership with Mistral AI enables the deployment of secure, customized generative AI solutions for automotive and industrial use cases, supported by strengthened internal capabilities including dedicated training and a Prompt Engineering Academy.
How does ALTEN support OEMs and Tier-1 suppliers in functional safety, compliance, and complex system integration?
ALTEN supports OEMs and Tier-1 suppliers across the full lifecycle of functional safety–critical systems, including the design and certification of solutions up to the highest automotive safety integrity level, ASIL-D. Our functional safety experts bring deep experience across mechanical, hardware, software, and manufacturing domains, supported by rigorous validation and certification processes.
We combine this with strong domain expertise in powertrain, chassis systems, cockpit electronics, and ADAS, enabling customers to design systems that are not only safe and secure, but also robust and production-ready. ALTEN’s subject matter experts closely track evolving global and regional regulatory requirements and work hand in hand with OEMs and Tier-1s to ensure compliant system design, development, and validation.
In addition, ALTEN’s expertise with global premium OEMs in vehicle-level and system-level integration of advanced technologies enables effective localization, end-to-end validation, and regional engineering support. We also support customers in building intelligent and precision manufacturing plants required for advanced vehicle technologies, including the design and integration of robotics, automated test equipment (ATEs), inspection and vision systems, PLCs and smart factory controls. Together, this helps customers manage complexity, accelerate deployment, and confidently bring next-generation vehicles to market.
What are the key challenges holding back India’s automotive electronics ecosystem, and how can engineering partners help overcome them?
India’s automotive electronics ecosystem faces several structural and technology-led challenges as vehicles become increasingly electrified, connected and software-driven. One of the primary challenges is building a resilient supply chain that enables the localization of advanced technologies, including automotive electronics, semiconductors, and critical materials such as rare earth metals. This is closely tied to the need for advanced manufacturing capabilities that can support the production of high-tech, highly integrated and precision-engineered vehicles at scale.
Another major constraint is the availability of robust testing and validation infrastructure, particularly for connected and autonomous features such as V2X, which depend not only on vehicle readiness but also on supporting road and digital infrastructure. In addition, many ADAS and autonomy features developed for global markets do not directly translate to Indian driving conditions, requiring significant fine-tuning, filtering and customization to ensure safety, reliability, and broader adoption.
Challenges also remain in access to high-performance compute environments, high-resolution and precision 3D map data, sufficient test and training data for AI models, and the widespread deployment of enabling technologies such as 5G—all of which are critical for next-generation vehicle platforms. Geopolitical uncertainties impacting global supply chains and export markets, along with the need to stay continuously aligned with evolving local and international regulatory and compliance requirements, further add to the complexity.
Engineering partners can play a pivotal role in addressing these challenges through co-investment, co-creation, and long-term partnerships with OEMs and Tier-1 suppliers. Companies like ALTEN, with deep expertise across automotive electronics, software, manufacturing, and validation—and a strong commitment to regional investment—can help bridge capability gaps, accelerate localization, adapt global technologies to Indian conditions, and strengthen the ecosystem to support India’s next phase of automotive innovation.