The Indian Army said it signed the eighth procurement contract through the Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX) on Monday (30-Sep-2024)

NEW DELHI: Continuing its push towards indigenisation of military related technologies, the Indian Army has signed a contract for secure information sharing.

The Indian Army said it signed the eighth procurement contract through the Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX) on Monday. "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 while also optimising manpower commitment," the Army added.

iDEX was launched in April 2018 during Defence Expo India 2018. Its aim 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 the Indian Defence and Aerospace Organisation.

The Army says that the iDEX under Defence Innovation Organisation has emerged as a front-runner in establishing the right kind of contact with startups and innovators and has gained substantial traction in the defence startup community.

"At present there are a total of 74 Projects of IA under iDEX included as part of Acing Development of Innovation Tech with iDEX (ADITI), Defence India Start-up Challenge (DISC) & Open Challenge schemes which involve handholding of 77 start-ups for development of latest state of art solutions for the Indian Army," the Army said.

Further, the Indian Army is already carrying out field exploitation of the equipment delivered from various iDEX schemes. Based on the results of the field exploitation, there will be further development of innovative technology through the start-ups, it added.

Agencies