Samsung's Indian R&D Hub Spearheads AI Innovation for Next-Gen Galaxy Devices

Samsung Eyes R&D Hub in India to Lead its Voice AI Tool | AIM

As Samsung accelerates its AI efforts, the company aims to define the future of mobile technology in an increasingly competitive landscape. Samsung is turning to its Indian research and development (R&D) hub to spearhead the development of a voice-first AI experience for its upcoming smartphones, signalling a strategic shift as competition with Apple and Google heats up. At a media roundtable in Bengaluru on August 26, Mohan Rao, corporate vice-president and managing director of Samsung R&D Institute India - Bengaluru (SRI-B), said the local centre would play a pivotal role in shaping Samsung's next generation of AI-powered Galaxy devices. Rao also did not reveal the number of engineers employed in Samsung's research and development unit in India or the company's yearly investment in the region. Additionally, Samsung did not comment on the government's recently introduced ₹1 trillion incentive

Samsung R&D Institute Bengaluru Blueprint for Global Innovation

* Samsung's Bengaluru centre started as a small delivery hub * They focus on six technology pillars * Gadgets 360 recently met Mohan Rao Goli, CVP and MD, SRI Bengaluru For Samsung, the R&D centre in Bengaluru has been a key contributor to the company's portfolio, focusing on developing India-specific features that eventually make their way to the rest of the world. The Samsung R&D Institute India, Bengaluru or more popularly referred to as SRI-B, has been at the centre of this evolution now for almost three decades. Gadgets 360 recently participated in a select media briefing with Mohan Rao Goli, Corporate Vice President (CVP) and Managing Director at the SRI, Bengaluru, which is the largest overseas software R&D centre under Samsung Research. Mohan Rao talked about the four technology pillars - wireless communications, computer vision, system software, and Internet of Things that the SRI, Bengaluru centre focuses on. He stressed that while Samsung aims to democratise Galaxy AI across devices, the availability of features is strictly dependent on the hardware's compute capabilities. He also discussed the importance of collaborative effort in R&D. For example, he touched upon some features, such as auto-transition on the latest Galaxy Fold 7 cameras, alongside AI wallpaper, audio eraser, Now Brief, and the most important UPI integration as a payment service in the Samsung wallet itself, which is an Indian customisation. Mohan Rao further added, "In a collaborative approach, we believe that all the R&D centres across the world, and the Suwon R&D centre, Seoul R&D centre, Bengaluru R&D centre, all together, collaboratively, we provide meaningful contributions to all our Samsung Galaxy devices. For example, for the Galaxy Fold 7 and Flip 7, we contributed to various kinds of features under the umbrella of Galaxy AI." Make in India, make for the world Mohan talked about how the centre has evolved from a simple "delivery hub" to an "innovation powerhouse". It developed India-specific features, such as UPI in Wallet and Voice Focus, and some of these features, like Voice Focus, are successful enough to be rolled out globally. He discussed how the "AI phone" is Samsung's next big bet and how this transition from the "smartphone" to the "AI phone" will eventually occur. Mohan Rao repeatedly positioned Galaxy AI not just as a set of features, but as the foundational "platform" for this new era of interaction. Samsung sees the future not as an iterative hardware update but as a fundamental platform shift, with Galaxy AI at its core. "We have four technology pillars - wireless communications, computer vision, system software, and Internet of Things. Of course, artificial intelligence is everywhere. Each of the technology pillars is adopting AI and then coming up with meaningful innovations in each of these areas, to provide some unique services, like Samsung Wallet and Samsung Finance+. Some Indian consumers' needs are getting addressed through these services," Mohan explained while giving a brief about the centre. Samsung R&D Institute Bengaluru (SRI-B) inaugurated the Samsung Innovation Campus programme at the KLE Institute of Technology (KLEIT), Hubli (Image from 2024) Next major technological advancement for the world and India On being asked bout what could be the next major technological advancement that SRI, Bengaluru, is working on, Mohan Rao explicitly stated that "AI is the most important thing". "At the moment, AI is the most important thing. But in my opinion, each of these technologies, the face of this particular technologies with the AI introductions, complementing the AI models is changing," he said while answering our question. "If you have to stick to the computer vision technologies only, maybe a smartphone camera would not have made it this far. By adding, complementing the AI features, AI models and then smartphone camera algorithms, we created wonderful images, wonderful videos and created an amazing editing experience for the consumers. So, personalisation, each of the personalised needs, and how AI will influence people's lives will depend on how the platform gets evolved further," he continued. "And the smartphone to AI phone transition is going to be much bigger, because the feature phone to smartphone transition did not happen overnight. The smartphone-to-AI phone transition will happen, but will take some time. For that groundwork is that we have to prepare the platform. Galaxy AI is the platform for that transition to happen. So, these are the two areas we will go to and that will, of course, it will influence each of these technology pillars also," Mohan Rao further added. He defined the future not as a single new technology, but in two main areas - Personalisation: Moving AI to understand and cater to the specific, personal needs of each user. AI Phone transition: Building the "Galaxy AI" platform as the groundwork for a fundamental shift in how users interact with their devices, moving beyond touch. Well, his answer solidifies Samsung's strategic direction, which suggests that the "next big thing" isn't a new piece of hardware, but a new AI-driven user experience paradigm. Interestingly, he positioned SRI-B as central to building the foundational platform for this global transition. Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 (on the left) and Galaxy Z Fold 7 (on the right) How a small idea becomes a feature on a Samsung device Next, we wanted to take a closer look behind the curtain at the innovation pipeline and understand the journey of an idea from a local insight to a potentially global feature. Q. How do you nurture and then identify with what has to go on in the market, like India, and then it gets over to South Korea or maybe global? How does that idea of...say, this is a feature we should be working on, come in? "It is a collective effort, the collaborative effort. So, we have the R&D organisation, we get the requirements from the product teams, and the product management teams. Moreover, we do a lot of consumer studies as part of the Gurugram office, and we get a lot of insights from these consumer studies. Whether the technology is ready to realise this particular feature or not that feasibility we assess in the R&D centre. Then we make the proof of concept related to this particular requirement, and then we collaborate with the Suwon R&D centre to decide which device will carry this specific feature. Then our quality teams will evaluate whether it is meeting the consumer needs or not, our consumer team will check that whatever the requirements are gathered, whether it is realised or not and then we take it to the market," he responded. Mohan's demystifies innovation at Samsung, framing it not as a random stroke of genius but as a structured, data-driven, and collaborative effort where the Indian centre plays a key role from ideation to execution.