At the India AI Impact Summit 2026 held at Bharat Mandapam, the Ministry of Steel unveiled a comprehensive roadmap on digital opportunities in the steel sector, reinforcing its vision to position India as a technology-driven global steel powerhouse. The strategy signals a shift in focus—from capacity expansion alone to embedding intelligent systems, predictive analytics, automation, and data-led decision-making across the steel value chain.

 From vision to implementation

Central to the initiative is the AI in Steel Pavilion, a first-of-its-kind collaborative platform designed to function as a problem-to-solution marketplace. The Pavilion presents real-time operational, logistical, safety, quality, sustainability, and marketing challenges faced by steel producers and mining companies. It invites AI solution providers, startups, technology firms, and research institutions to co-create scalable, outcome-oriented solutions.

The initiative marks a transition from incremental digitisation to mission-mode AI integration across mining, logistics, production, quality assurance, marketing, and corporate governance. The Ministry’s intent is clear: move beyond isolated pilots toward systemic digital transformation.

Industry–startup convergence

A high-level session at the summit convened leading steel producers, iron ore miners, policymakers, and AI innovators to deliberate on the sector’s digital future. Both public and private sector players presented their digitalisation roadmaps, highlighting priority areas for AI deployment.

 Discussions focused on actionable use cases such as predictive maintenance, computer vision, supply chain optimisation, and intelligent decision-support systems. Industry representatives outlined key operational challenges—including downtime reduction, yield improvement, worker safety enhancement, raw material optimisation, emissions reduction, and demand forecasting—while AI firms expressed readiness to deliver tailored solutions.

This structured engagement is expected to accelerate testing, validation, and large-scale deployment of AI innovations across the steel ecosystem.

Growth trajectory and future targets

The Secretary, Ministry of Steel Sandeep Poundrik highlighted the sector’s strong growth momentum. India’s steel consumption has nearly doubled from 77 million tonnes in 2014–15 to 152 million tonnes in 2024–25, driven by infrastructure expansion, urbanisation, manufacturing growth, and rising domestic demand.

Looking ahead, the Ministry crude steel capacity to rise from around 200 million tonnes currently to 300 million tonnes by 2030–31 and 400 million tonnes by 2035–36. This expansion will require parallel growth in mining, logistics, beneficiation, and downstream value addition.

The Ministry emphasised that AI will be a strategic enabler to ensure intelligent capacity utilisation, real-time monitoring, energy efficiency, and decarbonisation. Technologies such as digital twins, advanced analytics, and AI-driven process control will be critical to maintaining global competitiveness while improving safety, productivity, and sustainability.