Thales is a global technology leader shaping the world of tomorrow today. The Group provides solutions, services and products to customers in the aeronautics, space, transport, digital identity and security, and defence markets. With 80,000 employees in 68 countries, Thales generated sales of €19 billion in 2018 (on a pro forma basis including Gemalto).

Thales is investing in particular in digital innovations — connectivity, Big Data, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity — technologies that support businesses, organisations and governments in their decisive moments. On 02 April 2019, Thales completed the acquisition of Gemalto, creating a global leader in digital identity and security.

Present in India since 1953, Thales is headquartered in New Delhi and has other operational offices and sites spread across Bengaluru, Gurugram, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Noida and Pune among others. Over 1600 employees are working with Thales in India and its joint ventures. Since the beginning, Thales has been playing an essential role in India’s growth story by sharing its technologies and expertise in Defence, Transport, Aerospace, and Digital Identity and Security markets. Thales has two Engineering Competence Centres (ECC) in India. The ECC in Noida is focused on Digital Identity and Security business of Thales, while the one in Gurugram, an extension of this line of business, has a specialization in managing real-time big data analytics. The ECC in Bengaluru, focuses on hardware, software and systems engineering capabilities for both the civil and defence sectors, serving global needs. Thales seeks to hire over 3,000 engineers in the next three to five years for this Engineering Centre.

Supporting “Make in India”

India’s “Make in India” policy is fully supported by Thales. The government’s aim to develop the defence base of the country and Thales ’strategy of developing its industrial footprint in India stand in concurrence. With this as the backdrop, Thales has formed various co-operative partnerships with public and private sector industries, bringing in its expertise in delivering high-end technology solutions. It has been closely associated with HAL for over 50 years and has formed JVs with Samtel, BEL, L&T Technology Services and Reliance Aerostructure Limited. Thales also has cooperations with several Indian companies including Bharat Dynamics Limited, Kalyani group and MKU limited among others.

Thales’s “Go to India” approach

Further making the “Make in India” policy concrete and real, Thales has also been co-operating with the Indian public and private sector, particularly large corporate players and SMEs, to build transfer of technology and supply chain partnerships. Thales has extensive experience in liaising with numerous groups of supply chain partners to support the local industry in India and open up growth opportunities.

At the heart of Digital Transformation

Thales supports its customers by offering high-level expertise in four key digital technologies: the Internet of Things/connectivity, Big Data, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity, and has accelerated its investments in these technologies.

The acquisition of US-based firm Guavus, among other companies, is structured around these investments. A pioneer in real-time Big Data analytics, Guavus’ technologies and expertise strengthen Thales’ ability to support the digital transformation of our customers. Guavus has strong roots in India – over 140 digital experts in the competence centre in Gurugram – that add strength to our team here.

Growing with Universities

Collaborating with the world’s most dynamic universities is a key aspect of innovation at Thales. In March 2018, Thales and Indian Institute of Technology, Madras signed an MoU for a jointly supervised PhD fellowship scheme. Thales has formed similar partnerships with the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, and Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi in October 2015, January 2016 and September 2016, respectively. Thales believes that such associations will play a great role in fostering an ecosystem for research and consequently securing innovations for tomorrow.

Industry focus

India represents a significant market for Thales in both civil and military sectors. The Group’s defence business is recognised as a reliable partner in all three branches of the Indian Armed Forces: Navy, Air Force and Army. Its equipment and systems have been selected for various types of platforms. In the civil domain, Thales has activities in transportation and civil aerospace.

Socially responsible corporate

In June 2017, Thales Foundation and GeoHazards Society (GHS) launched first-of-its-kind school safety mobile application in India that allows school administrators to ‘write’ a School Disaster Management Plan (SDMP). Besides this, Thales has been supporting various other NGOs in India through local CSR initiatives and also group-level Foundation efforts. Some of them include Kutumbh Foundation, Jagriti, Protsahan, Samarpan Foundation, among others.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Month at Thales India: The Battle of Hackathon

Thales celebrated Artificial Intelligence (AI) month at Thales India in July 2019. As part of promoting AI, we organized a Hackathon named ‘Manthan’, battle of coding skills. This contest provided a platform for our talented engineering workforce to learn and prove their skills on Machine Learning under AI. The participants were given a problem statement by Director of Product Management, Data Discovery and classification. The Hackathon was supported by our CTO Group and sponsor Dataiku.

If this excites you and make you feel that you could have competed well – you are welcome to join the Thales team!