Evaluate the role of digitalisation and AI in enhancing competitiveness of India's steel industry.

Competitiveness in steel is decided by cost per tonne, product quality and emissions intensity. Recognising this, the Ministry of Steel's Chintan Shivir on Digitalisation (24 June 2026) pushed adoption of AI, automation, digital mining, predictive maintenance and smart manufacturing [1]. Digitalisation is a powerful efficiency multiplier, but only a partial answer to the sector's competitiveness deficit.

Gains from digitalisation and AI

• Asset and cost efficiency: predictive maintenance and smart manufacturing reduce unplanned furnace downtime and energy waste, raising output from installed capacity of 221.9 Mtpa without fresh capital outlay [1].
• Raw-material chain: digital mining strengthens ore evacuation and blending; NMDC raised June 2026 iron ore output to 5.15 Mt, up 44% YoY [1].
• Value addition: AI-based process control enables tighter tolerances needed for specialty steel, complementing PLI 1.2, under which 85 projects worth ₹11,887 crore were signed for downstream capacity [3].
• Green competitiveness: SAIL Rourkela's fully ERP-integrated CO₂ Dashboard builds the carbon-accounting capability that carbon-border regimes now demand of exporters [1].
• Benchmarking: digitally tracked PSU performance — SAIL's record 20.14 Mt sales in FY 2025-26 — sharpens accountability [4].

Limits of the digital lever

• Input insecurity persists: coking coal import dependence, targeted to fall from 85% to 65% by 2030-31, is a geological and logistics problem no algorithm solves [2].
• Fragmented secondary sector: small induction-furnace units lack capital, bandwidth and skilled manpower for AI adoption, widening a digital divide.
• Demand-side gap: per-capita consumption of about 61 kg against the NSP target of 158 kg shows competitiveness is also demand- and infrastructure-constrained [2].
• Legacy plants, data silos and cybersecurity exposure raise transition costs.

On balance, digitalisation meaningfully improves productivity, quality and carbon performance, but complements rather than substitutes raw-material security and capital deepening. Extending digital-readiness support to MSME secondary producers and linking incentives to verified efficiency and emissions benchmarks would let technology genuinely carry India toward the 300 Mtpa by 2030 goal and Atmanirbhar Bharat in a strategic industry.