CCTV is getting smarter

India sells nearly 50 million CCTV cameras a year, but only around 5% have any form of intelligence, according to Staqu Technologies. The rest mostly do what CCTV has always done – record footage and wait for someone to go looking for it.

That is beginning to change. A clutch of deeptech startups is adding an intelligence layer to cameras already installed in factories, restaurants, hospitals, shops and public spaces. Using video analytics, computer vision and edge computing, these systems can identify people, objects and events, generate alerts and make footage searchable.