Agratas: Engineering ‘Intelligent Energy’ Through a Data-First Architecture

Tata Group’s decision to enter the battery business is not simply a matter of vertical integration or manufacturing expansion. From the outset, Agratas has placed data at the center of its design philosophy, defining batteries not as consumable components but as learning assets. Its ambition is to address every variable—from India’s extreme climate conditions and price-sensitive market to the uncertainties of global supply chains—through a combination of battery chemistry and digital intelligence.
 






My interaction with Pravin Swaminathan, Vice President, Data and Business Transformation, Agratas Energy Storage Solutions, was one I had been looking forward to for two distinct reasons. First, Agratas may be the youngest entrant in the 158-year-old Tata Group ecosystem, but it already represents one of the group’s most significant strategic ambitions in the cell manufacturing space. Second, the conversation offered a rare opportunity to understand first-hand how a major home-grown global OEM is approaching the challenge of building a greenfield cell manufacturing vertical from the ground up.
The talk revealed how Agratas is being shaped with a defined sense of direction, while remaining firmly rooted in its vision of creating ‘intelligent energy’ with data at the heart of everything it builds. 
Agratas, the global battery arm of the Tata Group, manufactures high-performance, sustainable lithium-ion battery cells and packs for the automotive and energy storage sectors. It is building large-scale gigafactories in India at Sanand, Gujarat, and in the UK at Gravity Smart Campus, Somerset, to cater to customers such as Tata Motors and Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) currently, and to others in the future.
The Sanand facility, spread across 320 acres, is being developed with a planned initial capacity of 20 GWh and is expected to begin lithium-ion cell production in 2027. The UK gigafactory, meanwhile, is being planned with a 40 GWh capacity. 

Agratas is driven by three key focus areas:
- Electric Vehicle (EV) batteries for passenger and commercial electric vehicles
- Grid Energy Storage Systems (ESS) for renewable energy storage and grid stability
- Battery technology R&D focused on advanced chemistries and next-generation battery systems

The company sees EV batteries, ESS, and battery R&D not as isolated verticals, but as interconnected focus areas that will evolve based on market demand and customer needs. Mobility is a major global growth driver, while ESS is rapidly emerging alongside the expansion of renewable energy infrastructure. R&D, meanwhile, remains foundational across both domains.




The wall of Agratas’ office features portraits of Tata Group founder Jamsetji Tata, J.R.D. Tata, and Ratan Tata, accompanied by the words: “Rooted in Legacy. Driven by Responsibility.” The statement reflects a philosophy that has guided the Tata Group for more than 150 years. Agratas’ approach—designing batteries around data, traceability, and sustainability rather than viewing them merely as a manufacturing business—can be seen as an extension of those values. 


 
Being ‘born digital’ for Agratas is more a need than an OEM’s desire to branch into cell manufacturing as an experiment. And, it definitely is more than the adoption of modern software.
Born digital is about designing a foundational architectural advantage. As a greenfield organisation, Agratas has the ability to build systems from scratch without inheriting the fragmentation and integration constraints often associated with legacy enterprises.
Pravin shares, “Established companies often operate within complex legacy system environments built over different phases of digitalisation. They are not built for sustainability at the core. There are fragmented systems that were digitalised at different points in time. Unlike that, we are born digital. At this level, we are able to bypass all the integration complexities. Being born digital gives us the advantage of designing more integrated systems from the outset. This allows us to create a unified digital thread connecting R&D, manufacturing, supply chain, and the entire battery lifecycle.”
Building on this foundation, Agratas is gradually moving towards autonomous operations where agentic AI goes beyond assistance and begins managing processes independently within defined operational boundaries.
Pravin illustrates this with a simple example. By correlating slurry viscosity with real-time performance data, the system can identify deviations and dynamically adjust parameters. Optimal viscosity ensures uniform coating while preventing sedimentation and particle aggregation. Variations that are too high or too low can lead to manufacturing defects. Here, AI is not merely predictive but is capable of uncovering deeper patterns and insights.
The company’s advantage also lies in integrating materials and intelligence across the entire value chain — upstream, midstream, and downstream — to support both EV and ESS applications.
“The advantage is not merely about cost or speed,” Pravin explains. “It is about how the system itself is architected.”
Addressing the end-user impact, he adds, “It means safer batteries, consistent performance, and a dependable charging experience. By close-looping self-performance and vehicle data, we move from a reactive approach towards proactive optimisation.”
Why does owning battery chemistry become a game changer? Because while data defines how performance is understood, chemistry determines how it is ultimately delivered. In a country like India — where operating conditions, cost sensitivities, and usage patterns differ significantly from global benchmarks — Agratas believes ownership of chemistry becomes a competitive edge. 
Pravin points out, “India, for instance, is highly price-sensitive, and the operating conditions are far more demanding. We experience extreme temperatures here, and if we rely solely on importing cells and assembling them locally, it limits our ability to engineer for local operating realities.”
Conventional lithium-ion cells operating in high-temperature environments often face accelerated degradation caused by thermal stress, electrolyte decomposition, and long-term capacity fade. Agratas is attempting to address these challenges through thermally-stable chemistries, localised engineering, and advanced thermal management systems built around real-world operating conditions. 
“We will also pursue a multi-chemistry strategy aligned to different applications and market requirements in the future. This includes work on both established and emerging chemistries, balancing factors such as cost efficiency, energy density, and sustainability,” explains Pravin.
This localisation-first approach also shapes how Agratas differentiates itself in an increasingly competitive global battery landscape dominated by players from China and South Korea. 
Established global leaders are steadily advancing key battery technologies, including LFP, fast-charging solutions, NCM chemistries, and next-generation solid-state batteries. As against this, Agratas is positioning itself differently — by integrating material development with cell manufacturing while simultaneously localising the supply chain.
Its focus is on building a resilient and future-ready battery ecosystem where manufacturing, digital intelligence, and next-generation technologies work together to create solutions tailored to evolving market requirements.
But what a battery promises on paper and how it performs in the real world are often two different things. This raises a fundamental question — should batteries be treated as standardised products, or as systems that must adapt to context?
The gap between design intent and real-world behaviour is no longer a downstream issue. It is central to how battery strategy itself must evolve.
Pravin elaborates, “As we move into the future, we will capture operational feedback from vehicles with digital technology and this data can then be fed back into R&D. This will help us trace optimisation opportunities and fine-tune performance. To truly make the economics work for a specific market, ownership of the chemistries involved becomes essential.”




The Sanand facility, being developed on a 320-acre site in Gujarat, India, is designed with an initial production capacity target of 20 GWh and is expected to begin lithium-ion cell production in 2027.


 
In the SDV era, the battery itself can no longer remain a passive hardware component while the rest of the vehicle undergoes a software-led transformation. That shift is now redefining the automotive powertrain ecosystem itself.
Traditionally, OEMs defined the specifications with Tier-1 suppliers building products around them. Agratas, however, is attempting to move beyond the conventional OEM-supplier relationship and build a strategic platform partnership.
Pravin says, “This means exchange of high-fidelity data where the Tier-1s get access to vehicle data, cell performance, and real-world usage patterns. This allows both the OEMs and Tier-1 suppliers to predict the state of health (SoH) of the battery more precisely.”
This becomes particularly important in addressing one of the biggest challenges that the EV industry is facing — range anxiety. As battery SoH declines over time, the gap between the range displayed on the dashboard and the actual usable range begins to widen. Accurate SoH prediction therefore becomes critical in improving customer confidence and predictability.
This evolving data partnership reflects a broader industry shift where the battery is no longer viewed as a static mechanical component, but rather as a living chemical asset capable of continuous evolution.
While the idea of battery-as-a-service continues to exist in the back of the mind, Agratas believes that scalable service models can only emerge when lifecycle visibility becomes the foundational layer.




The UK gigafactory is planned with a production capacity of 40 GWh.  


 
Historically, battery development has relied extensively on iterative lab testing — a process that is time-consuming, resource-intensive, and often fragmented across functions.
Agratas is attempting to compress this cycle by building a unified battery intelligence platform that learns continuously from both successful outcomes and failures.
Pravin explains, “The model powered by simulation and AI predictions will reduce the number of experiments while allowing us to improve products at a faster pace. Also, with the regulatory landscape changing globally, we are in a better place because these requirements are already embedded into our systems rather than being treated as a compliance layer.”
One example is material traceability.
Agratas already has in-built traceability mechanisms across its value chain and is proactively preparing for battery passport frameworks even as global and Indian regulations continue to evolve.
The global battery passport system is emerging as a digital, QR-coded lifecycle record that tracks battery origin, composition, performance, and sustainability metrics. The European Union is expected to mandate battery passports for batteries above 2 kWh from 2027 onwards, while India is developing a similar ‘Battery Aadhaar’ or BPAN framework.
“We are talking about energy-efficient manufacturing,” Pravin says. “We have designed circular economy principles, and net-zero accountability directly into the system through data lineage.”
In an industry where long warranty periods often compensate for uncertainty, reducing uncertainty itself becomes a competitive advantage.




Behind all of this lies a larger ambition — contributing towards energy independence both for India and for global markets. For Agratas, this is not a distant vision but a direct outcome of how the company is designing its systems from the ground up, where both India and UK operations are strategically important. Together, they form part of the company’s broader long-term strategy designed around intelligent, digitally integrated ecosystems with strong emphasis on quality, traceability, and operational efficiency.
Being part of the Tata Group certainly provides industrial depth and ecosystem advantages. But beyond that, Agratas’ real strength lies in the way it views the battery itself, as an evolving system being shaped as much by software and intelligence as by chemistry. 

AEM(오토모티브일렉트로닉스매거진)

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