Artificial Intelligence is fast becoming the backbone of next-generation engineering, from accelerating 6G research and quantum computing to enabling safer autonomous vehicles and smarter test environments. In an exclusive interaction with CRN India, Sudhir Tangri, Vice President of APAC, Keysight Technologies, shares how the company is embedding AI across its test and measurement portfolio to drive efficiency, accuracy, and speed for customers in telecom, automotive, aerospace, and manufacturing. He also highlights the pivotal role of Keysight’s India and APAC engineering hubs in shaping global AI-led innovations, from digital twins and self-calibrating instruments to intelligent signal analysis, and offers his perspective on why enterprises must embrace “shift-left” strategies to remain competitive in the evolving world of electronic design and validation.
Across Keysight’s broad product and service portfolio in APAC, where is AI already creating measurable business value? Could you share a concrete use case that has successfully transitioned from lab experimentation to real-world field deployment?
Keysight leads in the deployment of AI in test instruments for performance optimisation to further enable our customers in various segments like aerospace and defence, manufacturing, digital twinning, electric vehicle testing as well as RAN testing in commercial communications. One of the best examples of AI based use cases is the use of Keysight Raysim with real world information to create a digital twin of the network and verify it for 5G/6G deployment. Our instruments can generate reliable and credible synthetic data that can help developers with digital twins in their product design. AI is one of the major design and optimisation tools for our customers across APAC region and we will continue to reduce their development time with AI based test instruments and generation of synthetic data to train their AI models.
Keysight is deeply engaged in frontier technologies such as 6G, quantum computing, and autonomous systems. How are AI-driven tools accelerating network design, protocol validation, or R&D in these areas? Are there pilots or early outcomes you can highlight?
Current industry efforts are in development and deployment of 5G advanced use cases like NTN with implementation of 3GPP release 17 and 18. 6G is in research phase with exploration of centimetre wave and sub-THz spectrum. Several prominent use cases like sensing, ubiquitous coverage, spectral efficiency, energy savings and AI based network are getting explored in 6G. This is leading to complex engineering design and testing in waveforms, channel modelling, sensing methods, AI neural receivers, CSI compression and AI-RAN among others. Keysight is uniquely positioned to provide test solutions in 5G-advanced and 6G research areas with our EDA and digital twinning tools. Our test instruments including signal generators, analysers, VSA, UE Simulators, Propsim and WaveJudge solutions provide comprehensive test capabilities for 6G research and testing. We are globally connected with the entire 6G development and test ecosystem and are committed to providing measurement insights to our 6G customers.
You may call it a pilot; we have done in-house measurements on waveform-based sensing which further validates and vindicates our leadership in 6G measurements.
Keysight’s quantum solutions spread across computing, communications and sensing. We have quantum pro for circuit design and quantum control system for control and measurements of thousands of qubits that help our customers to quickly and accurately determine qubit coherence.
Like in 6G and Quantum, we provide automotive test solutions both in EV and AV. One such example is our AI-powered channel emulation to test V2X communication as well as radar systems in real life traffic environment to validate operations and improve safety for autonomous vehicles.
Within sectors like telecom, automotive, or aerospace, can you share an example of how a customer leveraged Keysight’s AI-powered tools to overcome a critical engineering or compliance hurdle? What kind of transformation did AI enable in terms of efficiency, accuracy, or compliance readiness?
Keysight works with several operators across the globe and majority of them are looking towards reducing the cost of operations and increasing their revenue. With our power analysers, we can provide comprehensive visibility of power consumption in several stages of network operations and AI based software can assist to optimise energy consumption.
We work with major automotive manufacturers with our Radar Target Simulator and Radar Scene Emulators to test and validate their ADAS system. These tools are also used for coverage and compliance testing as per automotive safety standards.
Aerospace is a clandestine area, and we are working with our customers across APAC and globe for functional as well as performance measurements.
Our endeavour is to provide repeatable and reliable measurement results to solve complex engineering problems in the shortest time.
How is Keysight embedding AI into lab instrumentation, for example, self-calibrating test equipment, intelligent signal analysis, or automated root cause detection?
Calibration is a complex subject, and it requires deep understanding of test setup. In the past few years, we have incorporated auto calibration and self-calibration in products like network analysers and FieldFox among others. Our latest products like MTRX and BMD are equipped with tools for calibration as per system setup. They are equipped with self-calibration mechanisms to shorten calibration time from hours to minutes. In a similar manner, our digital equipment portfolio like scopes is equipped with a de-embedding mechanism leading to faster and accurate measurements. Our portfolio is also equipped with signal integrity and fault identification.
Given Keysight’s strong engineering base in India and APAC, how is the region contributing to AI-led innovation and product development? Are there specific initiatives or solutions from this talent hub that stand out globally?
Keysight’s engineering centres in APAC are playing a pivotal role in company’s AI innovation pipeline. Our R&D and engineering centres across APAC including India are actively developing AI-powered RF signal analysis, 6G channel modelling, and intelligent test automation for faster validation cycles. We have equal contributions in the development of network digital twins, self-calibrating instrumentation, and AI-enhanced battery and radar test systems. These initiatives position the region as a strategic hub for embedding AI into Keysight’s global product development roadmap, accelerating industry-wide transformation.
Looking ahead three years, what role do you see AI playing in shaping the future of electronic design and validation? What areas of investment should enterprises prioritise today to remain competitive in this rapidly evolving landscape?
AI is opening a new paradigm in design and validation, moving from assistive tools to becoming core components of the engineering workflow. Proliferation of AI mandates shift left in design and development cycle with simulation and digital twinning before prototyping. Testing plays a very vital role in shift left strategy which helps elevate confidence in design. With more AI models available for design and development, we believe that this shift left phenomena will further shift left in the next three to five years and organisations cannot obliviate from shift left to be left behind.
Our advice is to have deep testing at early stages of design and development to mitigate complex design and de-risk investments in upcoming technologies. Keysight comprehensive portfolio of EDA, digital twin tools and test instruments enable designers to spot issues early and get success in their designs to meet their time to market timelines.
