Continuing with the commitment towards the Atmanirbhar initiative, Indian Army has signed the eighth procurement contract through Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX) today. The contract for procurement of ‘Generation of Quantum Secure Key (Quantum Key Distribution)’ with M/s QuNu Labs was signed, in the presence of Lt Gen NC Raja Subramani, Vice Chief of The Army Staff at South Block, New Delhi. QuNu Labs had proposed a 200 km single hop Quantum Key Distribution in Open Challenge 2.0 under iDEX. It will replace the algorithm-based encryption systems thus enabling greater security as also optimising manpower commitment.
iDEX was launched by Hon’ble PM on 12 April 2018 during Defence Expo India 2018. The aim of iDEX is to create an eco-system to foster innovations and encourage technological development in Defence and Aerospace by engaging Research & Development (R&D) Institutes, Academia, Industries including MSMEs, Start-Ups, individual innovators and provide them grants/ funding and other support to carry out R&D which has good potential for future adoption by Indian Defence and Aerospace Organisation. iDEX under Defence Innovation Organisation has emerged as a front-runner in establishing the right kind of contact with the Startups and Innovators and has gained substantial traction in the Defence Startup Community.
At present there are total of 74 Projects of IA under iDEX included as part of Acing Devp of Innovation Tech with iDEX (ADITI), Defence India Startup Challenge (DISC) & Open Challenge schemes which involve handholding of 77 Startups for development of latest state of art solutions for the Indian Army. Indian Army is already carrying out field exploitation of the four delivered equipment from various iDEX schemes. Based on the results of the field exploitation further Spiral Development of the innovative technology will be progressed with the Startups.