TCS Opens India’s First ‘Lights-Out’ Factory Lab in Pune to Advance AI-First Manufacturing

Tata Consultancy Services has opened what it describes as India’s first lights-out factory laboratory, establishing a new facility in Pune where artificial intelligence, robotics, digital twins and industrial control systems are brought together to demonstrate increasingly autonomous manufacturing.

The TCS Industrial Autonomy & Engineering Lab – Lights-Out Factory has been established at the company’s Sahyadri Park campus in Pune. TCS announced its launch on September 9, 2026, positioning the facility as a testing ground for manufacturers seeking to move beyond conventional factory automation towards production environments capable of monitoring, adjusting and optimising more of their operations autonomously.

At the centre of the new facility is a fully robotic battery-pack assembly line. According to TCS, the multi-stage live manufacturing setup makes the Pune facility India’s first laboratory designed specifically to demonstrate the principles of lights-out manufacturing.

What Is a Lights-Out Factory?

The term “lights-out factory” refers to a manufacturing environment in which automated and autonomous systems can conduct production with minimal direct human intervention.

The concept goes significantly beyond installing individual industrial robots. Instead, machines, sensors, artificial intelligence, factory software and production-control systems are interconnected so that the manufacturing environment can increasingly perceive conditions, make decisions and adjust operations.

TCS says its Pune laboratory will use its Human+AI Service Autonomy Model to demonstrate how factories can move towards self-optimising operations. The facility integrates industrial AI, robotics, digital twins, factory control systems and real-time operational intelligence within a single manufacturing environment.

The objective is not simply to demonstrate robots performing repetitive tasks. Manufacturers will be able to use the laboratory to examine how multiple autonomous technologies can work together across an actual production process.

Fully Robotic Battery-Pack Assembly Line

The laboratory’s most prominent feature is its robotic battery-pack assembly setup.

TCS says simulations conducted on the multi-stage production line can allow manufacturers to prototype, validate and scale AI-first manufacturing systems before introducing them into operational factories.

This is important because deploying new autonomous technologies directly inside an active industrial plant can introduce technical and operational risks.

The Pune facility instead provides companies with a controlled environment where they can experiment with different manufacturing configurations, determine whether technologies are suitable for a particular production process and identify problems before attempting full-scale deployment.

TCS describes this as a way of addressing one of industry’s persistent challenges — converting Industry 4.0, AI and robotics concepts into practical manufacturing operating models.

Digital Twins Before Changes Reach the Factory

One of the technologies supporting this approach is the digital twin.

Digital twins create virtual representations of manufacturing systems, equipment or processes. TCS says the Pune facility will provide digital-twin and simulation environments where factory scenarios can be tested and validated before physical deployment.

This allows manufacturers to investigate how a proposed change could affect production without immediately disrupting an operating plant.

Different workflows, machine configurations and operating conditions can therefore be studied virtually before corresponding changes are introduced into physical manufacturing systems.

TCS has increasingly positioned digital twins as part of a broader shift towards Physical AI, where artificial intelligence is connected with machines and physical industrial environments rather than remaining limited to conventional software applications.

AI That Can See the Factory Floor

Another major component of the Pune laboratory is Vision AI.

TCS says machine perception, robotics and industrial automation will be combined to support adaptive manufacturing workflows and closer interaction between workers and autonomous systems.

Computer-vision systems can allow manufacturing equipment to interpret visual information from cameras and other sensors.

In an industrial environment, this can potentially support applications including automated quality inspection, where AI systems continuously examine products or components and identify defects or deviations during manufacturing.

The Pune lab is intended to support several such use cases, including predictive maintenance, automated quality inspection, process optimisation and increasingly autonomous factory operations.

Predicting Equipment Problems Before Failure

Predictive maintenance represents another important application.

Instead of servicing machinery only according to fixed schedules or after equipment breaks down, data collected from industrial equipment can be continuously analysed for signs of abnormal behaviour.

AI systems can identify changing operating conditions and potentially indicate when machinery requires inspection or maintenance.

TCS identifies AI-enabled predictive maintenance as one of the autonomous-factory concepts being demonstrated at the Pune laboratory, alongside production optimisation, quality inspection and resilient operations.

Such capabilities form part of a wider transformation in industrial automation in which factories move from merely collecting information towards using AI to interpret conditions and support operational decisions.

Sensor-to-Cloud Intelligence

For autonomous manufacturing to work effectively, information generated by machines on the shop floor must be connected to larger computing systems.

TCS therefore includes what it calls sensor-to-cloud industrial intelligence among the core capabilities of the Pune laboratory.

The system connects shop-floor signals with edge and cloud computing platforms, allowing manufacturing information to be analysed in real time and used for context-aware decision-making.

Industrial sensors can generate information on machine condition, temperature, vibration, production quality and other operating parameters.

Processing some of that information close to the machinery through edge computing can enable rapid responses, while cloud systems can provide additional computing resources and broader data analysis.

Software-Defined Manufacturing

TCS is also exploring what it describes as software-defined engineering.

The approach seeks to make industrial systems more adaptable by allowing their behaviour and capabilities to evolve through changes in software, data and artificial intelligence rather than depending entirely on modifications to physical equipment.

TCS’s wider industrial-autonomy strategy envisages an evolution from hardware-defined systems towards software-defined adaptability and eventually greater operational autonomy.

Its Human+AI approach describes different stages in which AI progresses from functioning as a tool or assistant towards supervised agents and increasingly autonomous systems, while humans assume greater responsibility for supervision, orchestration and governance.

From Isolated Automation to an Integrated Factory

One of the more significant aspects of the Pune project is the emphasis on integration.

Industrial companies have deployed robotics and automation for decades. However, many applications still operate as individual systems performing predetermined tasks.

TCS says manufacturers are now looking beyond such isolated automation initiatives towards environments in which engineering, manufacturing and factory operations are integrated through AI.

The Pune laboratory is intended to provide a practical setting in which these technologies can be combined rather than demonstrated independently.

This could allow manufacturers to investigate factories in which machines perceive their environment, production software analyses changing conditions, digital twins model possible responses and automated equipment carries out appropriate actions.

Pune Lab Follows TCS Physical AI Facility in Bengaluru

The Pune lights-out factory is part of a broader expansion of TCS’s industrial-autonomy research infrastructure.

On July 15, 2026, TCS officially announced the TCS Autonomous Engineering Lab Powered by NVIDIA at its Global Axis campus in Bengaluru.

That facility was established as a Physical AI hub for manufacturing and mobility, using NVIDIA AI infrastructure to enable companies to design, prototype, simulate, test and validate industrial AI applications before deploying them in real-world environments.

TCS said the Bengaluru centre was intended to help enterprises move industrial AI projects from pilot programmes towards production-scale deployment.

The Pune facility takes that strategy directly onto a simulated manufacturing floor, where autonomous technologies can be tested on a functioning robotic assembly system.

Towards More Autonomous Indian Manufacturing

TCS’s new laboratory highlights a broader transition underway in manufacturing.

Traditional industrial automation has largely focused on machines carrying out predefined tasks. The emerging model introduces AI capable of analysing its surroundings, recognising changing circumstances and helping machines adjust their actions accordingly.

TCS describes Physical AI as the convergence of artificial intelligence with robotics and physical systems, enabling machines to perceive, sense, plan and execute actions in the physical world with reduced human intervention.

The Pune lights-out factory laboratory provides a physical environment in which that concept can be tested across an integrated production line.

Rather than being a commercial factory producing battery packs at scale, it is fundamentally a technology demonstration, experimentation and validation facility. Its importance lies in providing manufacturers with a place to test whether AI-driven autonomous manufacturing can work reliably before those technologies are transferred to real industrial plants.

With its robotic battery assembly line, digital twins, Vision AI, industrial robotics, predictive maintenance systems and real-time sensor intelligence, the Pune facility represents TCS’s attempt to move the concept of the autonomous factory from individual technology demonstrations towards an integrated manufacturing environment.

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Source : TCS News Room :TCS official announcement — India’s first lights-out factory lab

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