Rodic Consultants, in partnership with Nasscom and Startup India, has launched the Rodic InfraAI Innovation Challenge 2026, seeking startups that can use artificial intelligence to solve problems in infrastructure and public-service delivery.
The challenge, running till November 2026, is focused on four areas, such as the India Energy Stack; roads, bridges and tunnels; climate-resilient infrastructure; and public works and citizen benefit delivery.
For startups, the programme offers a ₹30 lakh prize pool, but Rodic says the bigger opportunity could come after the competition. The company has allocated ₹3–5 crore for potential strategic investments in startups emerging from the challenge.
The investment will not be automatic, Rodic Group said in response to queries, adding that it would depend on demonstrated pilot outcomes, the startup’s willingness to take the engagement forward, standard due diligence and internal approvals. Any investment would be a minority stake at the seed to Series A stage, it said.
Rodic described the challenge as its “first structured, large-scale platform of this kind for engaging with the startup ecosystem” and said it is its first dedicated programme for “sourcing, piloting and scaling third-party AI innovation”. The company has previously worked with technology vendors and partners on individual projects.
The programme is designed to go beyond awarding prize money. Rodic said the ₹30 lakh prize pool is “one component of the programme, not the whole of it”. Pilot engagements under the challenge are separately contracted and paid against KPIs agreed at the outset, with budgets set per engagement rather than drawn from a single pooled allocation.
Beyond that, Rodic said, it is committing engineering time, mentorship, technical evaluation support and project access to move shortlisted teams from proof-of-concept toward field validation.
The company intends to test selected solutions on projects from its active portfolio covering roads and highways, power distribution, urban water and resilience, and public-service delivery. Rodic said the intention is “field deployment, not a one-time demonstration”. Rodic said some solutions would run on project data in parallel with existing workflows, while others could be deployed directly on site.
However, a pilot is not guaranteed. Rodic is the project management or design consultant on the relevant projects, while the underlying assets belong to government departments, PSUs or municipal bodies. Approvals for site access, live data and field deployment will therefore have to be obtained from the project owner after a solution and project are matched, it said.
Nasscom said it is bringing its AI startup ecosystem to the challenge through national outreach, structured mentorship, expert access and visibility through relevant platforms.. It will also guide startups and Rodic on pathways towards successful enterprise-startup partnerships and work with ecosystem partners to provide technology support where applicable.
Nasscom said it assessed whether the challenge was “anchored in substantive infrastructure problems and offered a credible pathway from innovation to deployment” before partnering with Rodic. It also clarified that pilot opportunities, as with other programmes, are not guaranteed and depend on “solution quality, feasibility, data, integration, and project requirements”.
If a pilot succeeds, Rodic said the commercial route could include licensing, revenue sharing or co-development. Where a solution is deployed on a client project, the continuing commercial arrangement would involve the project owner.
For participating startups, the intellectual property developed during the challenge remains with them. Any subsequent deployment or commercialisation by Rodic would be governed by a separate commercial or licensing agreement, the company said.
The applications will be shortlisted by an external evaluation panel, while the final jury (comprising independent domain experts and representatives from Rodic and Nasscom) will select the top three winners.
Published – September 12, 2026 10:34 am IST
