Hindustan Zinc Limited, part of the Vedanta Group and one of the world’s largest integrated zinc producers as well as a leading global silver producer, recently hosted ‘Zinnovation 2026’ in collaboration with V-Spark DeepTech Ventures. The event highlighted the company’s ambitious plan to unlock ?2,000 crore in value through AI-driven industrial transformation.
Positioned as both a technology showcase and an AI pitch forum, Zinnovation 2026 focused on accelerating digital transformation across mining, smelting, and manufacturing operations.
The projected value creation is expected to come from improvements in productivity, cost optimisation, asset reliability, energy efficiency, safety, recovery rates, and faster decision-making across Hindustan Zinc’s operations.
Through its partnership with Hindustan Zinc, V-Spark aims to extend these advanced AI-led use cases beyond metals and mining to the broader manufacturing sector, an industry that still lags in digital adoption despite contributing nearly 17% to India’s GDP.
As global industries increasingly embrace AI, automation, and industrial intelligence, platforms like V-Spark are helping drive the next wave of smart manufacturing.
Zinnovation 2026 was designed to move beyond concepts and demonstrate real, scalable applications. It reinforced Hindustan Zinc’s venture-client model, which focuses on rapidly piloting, validating, and scaling technologies with measurable business outcomes.
The event saw multiple strategic partnerships take shape. MoUs were signed with leading companies such as XCMG, Sandvik, STL Digital, and AVEVA. At the same time, V-Spark partnered with emerging startups including Beta Tanks Robotics, Symboticware AI, Kernely, Uncharted Technologies, Infinite Uptime, Intellisense.io, and Flutura. These collaborations will focus on feasibility assessments, data integration, deployment strategies, and scaling potential across industrial use cases.
Hindustan Zinc also showcased its digital capabilities, offering a glimpse into its advanced mining and smelting operations. Highlights included tele-remote operations, a state-of-the-art winder simulator, and immersive virtual demonstrations of its facilities.
The event brought together a strong lineup of industry leaders and technology experts, including Arun Misra, CEO of Hindustan Zinc; Amitesh Sinha, CEO of V-Spark DeepTech Ventures; and senior executives from Siemens, Microsoft, Google, Sandvik, XCMG, and AVEVA.
V-Spark continues to play a key role in strengthening industrial innovation by identifying and partnering with high-potential startups and technology companies. Currently, Hindustan Zinc is working with over 50 deep-tech startups on more than 100 projects through V-Spark.
These initiatives span production enhancement, cost optimisation, ESG leadership, asset performance, safety, and operational efficiency.
By combining its integrated operations with V-Spark’s venture-client model, Hindustan Zinc is aiming to significantly shorten the path from problem identification to pilot execution—and ultimately to large-scale business impact.
Discussions centred on high-impact industrial applications of AI, including predictive maintenance, digital twins, connected operations, autonomous systems, computer vision, industrial data platforms, robotic applications, intelligent process control and real-time decision intelligence.
Leadership Comments
Priya Agarwal Hebbar, Chairperson, Hindustan Zinc, said: “The future of manufacturing will be defined by our ability to scale with intelligence. At Hindustan Zinc, we are embedding technology directly into the core of our operations to prove that an industry traditionally defined by grit can be led by data. Zinnovation brings together global capability, entrepreneurial innovation and a scale that can deliver real impact on the ground. As we advance our HZL 2.0 vision, we are engineering a 21st-century metals enterprise that ensures our people work safely, our environmental footprint stays small, and our technology sets a global benchmark.”
Akarsh Hebbar, Chairman, V-Spark DeepTech Ventures and President, Vedanta Group, said: “The next era of industrial leadership will be driven by AI and collaborative innovation ecosystems. Through V-Spark DeepTech Ventures, we are building a platform that connects startups, technology leaders, and operating businesses to solve critical industrial challenges at scale. Zinnovation reflects our commitment to moving innovation from pilots to performance, proving that a 3x to 4x return is a highly achievable reality for deep tech AI enterprises. This is how we create globally benchmarked, future-ready operations across industries.”
Mr. Manojit Haldar, India Head, Sandvik said,
“The metals and mining sector is entering a decisive phase where digitalisation, automation and AI will shape the next level of productivity and competitiveness. Hindustan Zinc’s approach is significant because it is linking technology adoption with clearly defined operational priorities and scale-up pathways. Through platforms such as Zinnovation, industry leaders and technology partners can co-create solutions that are practical, scalable and aligned to the future of intelligent industrial operations.”
Raunak Bhinge, Founder and MD, Infinite Uptime, said,
“Industrial AI creates the highest impact when it is deployed close to the asset and linked to measurable business outcomes. Hindustan Zinc’s focus on reliability, predictive maintenance and operational intelligence creates a strong foundation for reducing downtime, improving asset performance and unlocking value at scale. Through platforms such as Zinnovation, V-Spark DeepTech Ventures is enabling deep-tech companies to work with real industrial problem statements where solutions can be demonstrated, validated and scaled.”
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