When Cars Stop Phoning Home: India’s V2V Mandate and the Edge Cloud Reality
By Shashi Bellamkonda | Principal Research Director
Reports from The Economic Times (January 9, 2026) indicate a pivotal regulatory shift: The Indian Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) will mandate the installation of Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communication devices in all new cars. According to Minister Nitin Gadkari, the Department of Telecommunications has agreed in principle to reserve 30 MHz of spectrum specifically for this purpose. This is not just a safety feature; it is a data sovereignty decision that moves critical processing from the centralized cloud to the "edge" of the car itself.
The Leadership
The technology required to execute this vision—where devices communicate without a central server—is being pioneered by companies like Mimik Technology. Founded by Fay Arjomandi (ex-Vodafone xone), Mimik has raised over $14 million in funding, including a Series A led by Pier 88 Investment Partners. The leadership team includes Chief of Staff Arthur Bailey (ex-AWS), who I recently met for a demonstration of their platform's capabilities.
The Technology: Hybrid Edge Cloud
Most "connected car" strategies rely on sending data to a data center (AWS, Azure) and waiting for a response. In Indian traffic conditions, that latency is unacceptable. Mimik’s differentiator is its "Hybrid Edge Cloud" architecture. Instead of just acting as a client, the software allows the car’s onboard computer to act as a mini-server.
According to the demo I viewed with Arthur Bailey, this allows vehicles to form ad-hoc local clusters. A car braking on a blind turn in Hyderabad doesn't need to tell a server in Mumbai; it tells the three cars behind it directly. This utilizes the 30 MHz spectrum efficiently by keeping local data local.
[attachment_0]The Competitive Landscape
The V2V market is currently divided into two layers:
- Hardware Incumbents (The Chipset Layer): Global giants like Qualcomm (C-V2X) and NXP Semiconductors dominate the physical radio layer. They win on silicon volume and established OEM relationships.
- Software Disruptors (The Intelligence Layer): This is where Mimik and competitors like BlackBerry IVY compete. While BlackBerry leverages its QNX operating system dominance, Mimik’s moat is its OS-agnostic "microservice" approach, allowing it to run on diverse hardware without locking OEMs into a specific ecosystem.
Global Footprint & Operational Scale
While this mandate is specific to India, the technology is global. India’s goal to reduce road fatalities by 50% by 2030 creates a massive sandbox for high-volume, high-chaos stress testing of V2V systems. With over 500,000 road accidents reported in 2023 alone (according to Ministry data), the operational scale required for these systems is unprecedented. If Mimik’s software can handle the density of a Delhi intersection, it can handle anything in Europe or North America.
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Sources
- The Economic Times, "New Cars will Soon Have to Speak to One Another," January 9, 2026.
- Mimik Technology, Corporate Funding & Leadership Data.
- Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH), Accident Statistics 2023.
Disclaimer: This blog post reflects my personal views only. AI tools may have been used for brevity, structure, or research support. Please independently verify any information before relying on it. This content does not represent the views of my employer, Infotech.com.
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