AI That Knows Where: Building the Data and Intelligence Layer for India’s Physical World

AI can process vast amounts of information. But to truly understand the world around us, it needs something more: an understanding of where things are, how they change, and what is happening around them.

This was the focus of “AI that knows where,” a session by Mr. Ankeet Bhat, President, Enterprise Business, MapmyIndia, at The CXO Data Circle, an AWS Leadership Dialogue, held in Bengaluru on 30 September.

The dialogue brought together leaders from across organisations in India to discuss how businesses are reshaping their data foundations as Agentic AI moves from experimentation towards tangible transformation. Against this backdrop, the session explored an important question: what does it take for AI to understand the physical world?

For MapmyIndia, the answer begins with data that represents India as it exists on the ground. Mapping the country’s physical reality is not a one-time exercise. Roads change, places evolve, infrastructure develops, movement patterns shift, and the context around locations continues to change. Keeping this spatial data current and combining it with imagery, movement, time and contextual intelligence creates a richer foundation for AI to understand the world beyond digital interfaces.

This is where location intelligence becomes an important part of the AI data layer. When AI knows not just what something is, but where it is, what surrounds it and how that context changes over time, it can move closer to understanding real-world situations and translating intelligence into action.

Building this understanding requires both data and the infrastructure to work with it at scale. Amazon Web Services (AWS) provides the cloud infrastructure that supports the heavy lifting, while MapmyIndia brings India-true location data and intelligence that adds meaning to the physical world.

Together, this combination brings technology and ground truth closer, creating possibilities for AI systems that can understand India not just through information, but through its places, people, movement and context.

As Agentic AI continues to evolve, the ability to connect digital intelligence with the physical world will become increasingly important. And for AI to know what to do next, it first needs to know where it is.