Roorkee – September 10, 2026 -- Avathon and the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee (IIT Roorkee) have launched the Avathon Physical AI Lab (Avathon PAL), a research initiative aimed at advancing Physical AI for industrial operations, to be housed in IIT Roorkee's Department of Computer Science & Engineering.
Avathon pairs industrial autonomy expertise with IIT Roorkee's research talent
The lab will focus on optimization, machine learning, knowledge representation, and multi-agent systems, targeting problems such as supply planning, logistics at scale, and continuously learning autonomous systems for the industrial economy.
Bangalore Center of Excellence will translate lab research into deployed solutions
The Avathon PAL will work with Avathon's newly formed AI Center of Excellence (COE) in Bangalore, which will anchor the company's research and engineering presence in India. The COE is designed to serve as the primary industrial counterpart to the lab's academic work, moving research from IIT Roorkee into production applications across mining, energy, manufacturing, logistics, and aerospace.
CEO Pervinder Johar, an IIT Roorkee alumnus, frames the partnership as personal
"IIT Roorkee shaped how I think about the world and what's possible within it. Returning to build something lasting here is deeply personal," said Pervinder Johar, Chief Executive Officer of Avathon.
IIT Roorkee director cites national self-reliance goals tied to the lab
Prof. K.K. Pant, Director of IIT Roorkee, said the lab marks a step toward strengthening the bridge between research and industrial application, linking the effort to India's technological self-reliance goals under the Viksit Bharat 2047 vision.
Lab will fund doctoral fellowships, internships, and industry workshops
The Avathon PAL intends to support sponsored doctoral fellowships, collaborative research across multiple problem areas, student internships and industry exposure at Avathon, and workshops connecting the initiative to the wider research community. Prof. Sugata Gangopadhyay, Principal Investigator of the Avathon PAL at IIT Roorkee's Department of Computer Science & Engineering, will lead the academic side of the collaboration.