WCA September 2022

India Insight

New production facility opens in the Chennai’s Thirumazhisai district

Sixteen years ago, German technology group Harting established its foundations in India, with a sales office in Chennai. The opening of the sales office was followed by rapid growth, especially in the important markets for mechanical engineering, systems engineering, power generation and transportation, and the company steadily expanded its capacity. Harting has now opened a 3,000m 2 production facility in Chennai’s most important production centre.

“Back then, it was just a small sales office with the employees initially looking after the sales and marketing of our products,” said CEO Philip Harting. “Today, we produce for our customers in India in a facility measuring 3,000m 2 .”

The new plant is built for efficient processes while operating at the fullest possible capacity

The new production facility is designed to meet demand for Harting products and solutions in India, while also ensuring proximity to customers in the Asia region.

The plant is built for efficient processes operating at full capacity. Andreas Conrad, management board member responsible for operations in the Harting Technology Group, commented, “In taking these steps, we are creating long-term prospects, not just for our national company in India or our global technology group but also for the future of generations to come. “Because also at the planning stage, we made sure to position ourselves with a view to what’s coming down the track and to put the reduction of our carbon footprint squarely front and centre – in other words, to take care of our CO 2 emissions. “The new production building meets all the latest standards and is totally focused on energy efficiency.” Harting Stiftung & Co KG www.harting.com Mumbai to Milan, Italy, and with addi tional landings in the Middle East, North Africa and the Mediterranean, will be ready for service in mid-2024. The systems will provide more than 200 Tb/s of capacity over 16,000km. Employing open system technology and the latest wavelength switched ROADM/ branching units will ensure rapid upgrade deployment and the flexibility to add or drop waves across multiple locations. Reliance Industries Ltd www.jio.com Ocean Connect Maldives Pvt Ltd www.oceanconnect.mv

The inauguration of the new building

Subsea cable system to connect Maldives to India and Singapore Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd will land the multi-terabit India-Asia-Xpress (IAX)

Reliance Jio president Mathew Oommen said, “Today’s global economy is driven by low-latency broadband, connecting people, businesses, content and services. IAX will not only connect Maldives to the world’s content hubs, but it will also support the explosive growth in data demand expected from the new initiatives being launched by the government of Maldives.” The IAX system originates in Mumbai, India, and connects directly to Singapore, with branches including additional landings in India, Malaysia and Thailand. It is expected to be ready for service by the end of 2023. Another system – the India-Europe-Xpress (IEX) – connecting

undersea cable system in Hulhumale, Maldives. The high-capacity and high speed IAX systemwill connect Hulhumale directly with major Internet hubs in India and Singapore. Maldives’ minister of economic develop- ment, Hon Uz Fayyaz Ismail, speaking about the launch of the country’s first international cable, said, “This is the first stride towards enhancing our connectivity infrastructure and opening vast opportunities for our people through providing secure, affordable and high quality services. We also aim to diversify our economy and establish ourselves as a key communications hub in South Asia.”

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September 2022