Fraunhofer recently hosted a special session on agriculture, titled, “Standards & Policy Pathways for Scaling AI-Enabled, Farmer-Centric Agrifood Systems” at the Bharat Mandapam during India AI Summit. During the agriculture-focused session, Raghu Chaliganti of Fraunhofer HHI and ITU stressed that scaling AI requires robust governance, interoperability, and high-quality data. He noted that fragmented digital solutions fail farmers, advocating integrated, standardized platforms delivering real-time, farmer-centric decision support to reduce climate risks and improve outcomes.
The session’s objectives were to examine the standards and policy pathways that are required to responsibly scale the AI-enabled and farmer-centric agrifood systems, to focus on closing critical standards gaps as well as enabling ethical, transparent, and inclusive AI deployment and to strengthen global-national coordination across the agrifood value chain.
The event saw participation from Dr. Sebastian Bosse, Fraunhofer HHI, Rabi N. Sahoo, ICAR–IARI, Volker Klima, German Embassy in India (Germany), Santanu Chaudhary, IIT Delhi, Frederic Werner, ITU (Switzerland), and Gopal Patra, CSIR–4PI at the Bharat Mandapam.
At the India AI Summit held at Bharat Mandapam, Fraunhofer curated multiple platforms to underscore and power Indo German partnerships in AI and allied technologies. It hosted the Indo-German Innovation and Technology Forum “AI for Economic Development and Social Good”. Fraunhofer’s competencies and its partnerships in India in the fields of AI in Manufacturing, Agriculture, Health and policy advocacy were showcased at different events.
At the Indo-German Innovation and Technology Forum event, the Guest of Honour, Prof. Dr. Kristina Sinemus, Hessian Minister for Digitalisation and Innovation, State of Hessen, Germany said that AI is already transforming how we produce, heal, grow food, and govern. The key question is not whether AI will shape our society, but how and whether economic development and social good advance together. She said our strategy is guided by a clear principle: technology must serve people, not the other way around. The minister said that India has shown with initiatives like ADA, NPI, and India Stack how digital public infrastructure can scale and enable innovation at massive levels. Germany can bring expertise in balanced regulation, data protection, and quality assurance. Together, India and Germany can build bridges between scale and safeguard, between innovation and rights, between economic development and social good, grounded in shared democratic values.
Georg Enzweiler, Deputy Chief of Mission, Embassy of The Federal Republic of Germany, New Delhi, highlighted AI’s vast potential for economic and social good, from agriculture to manufacturing, while stressing inclusive and sustainable growth. He noted Germany’s investments in AI for climate and sustainability and praised India’s strong AI talent base.
Speaking at the forum, Anandi Iyer, Director, Fraunhofer Office India said that Fraunhofer is one of the largest applied research ecosystems in the world, with 76 institutes in Germany and a presence in more than 80 countries. She highlighted that Fraunhofer produces two patents for every working day and is the inventor of the MP3, white LEDs, and several other breakthrough technologies.
