With the Ministry of Defence (MoD), GoI ensuring that emergency financial powers allocated to the armed forces for quick contracting of weapon systems aren’t used for imports, a significant opportunity has opened up for domestic companies. It is learnt that several dozen projects are under discussion, with the private sector set to deliver a variety of weapons including swarm drones, long-range rockets, next generation mines, armed unmanned aerial vehicles and artificial intelligence-enabled systems. Experts feel the long-term focus should be on captive R&D for futuristic products in a public private partnership model to develop the next generation military hardware in the country.