Hexagon AB, a global leader in digital reality solutions like digital twins, GNSS, and LiDAR, continues to make strides in advancing R&D and agentic AI. Interestingly, the Stockholm-based company attributes a lot of this R&D to its Hyderabad global capability centre (GCC).
Hexagon R&D India in Hyderabad has around 2,200 employees. Burkhard Boeckem, CTO at Hexagon AB, recently visited the Hyderabad GCC during the company’s Tech Day event and highlighted the impact that the centre is creating for the company’s global operations.
Reflecting on the significance of the centre, Boeckem told AIM that Hyderabad is one of Hexagon’s three main R&D centres globally, besides Switzerland and the US. “The focus here is primarily on R&D, with some service functions closely aligned to our innovation initiatives,” Boeckem said.
The centre fosters strong collaborations with technology giants like AWS and Microsoft, as well as local and global academia. “The partnerships we have built here are instrumental in driving innovation. We invited our partners to the Tech Day, and it’s evident that 2025 will be the year of agents in AI,” Boeckem remarked.
The Future is All About Agentic AI
Hexagon’s approach to AI has been strategic and evolutionary. Boeckem said that from the early adoption of deep learning in 2012 to embracing generative AI in 2018, the company has consistently been ahead of industry trends.
“Our work revolves around taking real-world data and creating digital twins with metrology-grade accuracy, leveraging machine learning, deep learning, and generative AI to gain insights and actionable intelligence,” he said.
Boeckem explained that the research team, which is based in Hyderabad, facilitates much of this work.
The same is true for agentic AI. Boeckem said that these systems, which can autonomously make decisions and interact with their environment, are poised to transform industries.
“Hexagon’s tagline, ‘Shaping Reality’ aligns perfectly with agentic AI,” Boeckem said that whether it’s an autonomous flying laser scanner or off-road autonomy in mining, Hexagon’s focus is on increasing autonomy in decision-making.
Hexagon’s R&D efforts span 28 industries, with divisions dedicated to geosystems, manufacturing intelligence, asset lifecycle intelligence, safety infrastructure, and autonomous solutions. The Hyderabad GCC plays a pivotal role in these domains by housing the global innovation hub—a 400-strong team focused on this innovation.
“The talent pool here [in Hyderabad] is phenomenal, and we are excited about the future of agentic AI and its potential to transform industries,” Boeckem said, adding that the company spends 15% of its revenue back into R&D, Hyderabad being one of the biggest centres for it.
AI at the Edge and in the Right Places
Hexagon’s focus is on bringing agentic AI into the engineering, mining, and construction operations instead of focusing on cars and driving, which Boeckem calls manufacturing intelligence. “Let the Bosch and Continentals of the world take it and bring it to scalability, Hexagon is focused on process optimisation and inspection automation.”
Boeckem said that autonomous vehicles are something that the company focuses on, but in industrial use cases instead of on-road driving.
The company collaborates with solution providers like Boston Dynamics and Airbus to create products that solve problems. For example, Hexagon created the BLK2FLY which won the Time Innovation of the Year award in 2022. It has amazing obstacle avoidance and tracking capabilities.
A key focus area for Hexagon is AI at the edge, enabling real-time data processing and insights at the device level. Boeckem highlighted the Aura face scanner, a product developed with significant contributions from the Hyderabad team.
Aura reconstructs a 3D digital twin of the face in milliseconds, offering applications in dermatology, plastic surgery, and medical aesthetics. The scanner leverages AI at the edge to provide unparalleled insights with precision.
With its innovative system that resembles a sleek, golden monitor, Aura is much more than just a display — it houses 13 cameras along with an advanced illumination system. This technology can reconstruct a highly detailed digital twin of your face in a millisecond.
It enables them to analyse facial features in 3D, offering insights into a range of concerns, from assessing UV damage and brown spots to evaluating pore conditions. It also allows them to simulate the potential effects of cosmetic procedures, such as Botox injections or facelifts, providing a clear visualisation of the expected results.
Additionally, the use of AI at the edge, particularly agentic AI, is an important aspect to consider. As agentic AI becomes more prevalent, there is a growing focus on ethical and regulatory considerations. Ensuring that these systems operate safely and fairly is crucial, especially in terms of privacy protection—such as when using facial scanning technology.
Despite this belief in agentic AI, Boeckem is also a firm believer in teamwork and does not completely agree that there would be companies that work with just AI agents. “The inspiring and motivating things we are doing at Hexagon R&D India… cannot be replaced by AI agents. The most successful companies find the right balance between human ingenuity and AI,” Boeckem said, adding that Jensen Huang’s idea of the future about physical AI is absolutely true.
He believes that though humanoids might not be in people’s homes, we might see them in dangerous and life-threatening places for humans. “By 2026, we would have probably exhausted all the possibilities of a prompt and offer of a large language model. I think then it’d be time to move on to the next chapter.”
