PANIM Announces India Expansion to Advance Distributed AI Computing for Agriculture

LONDON, Sept. 28, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — PANIM, a distributed AI computing company founded by Amit Shastri, has announced plans to take its distributed computing technology into field testing in India, targeting applications across agriculture and other data-intensive industries.

The company is developing a network of compact, energy-efficient computing devices designed to work together as distributed AI infrastructure. Rather than relying exclusively on large centralized data centres, PANIM aims to enable computing workloads to be distributed across networks of smaller, independently operated machines.

For Shastri, the move to India represents both a significant step in PANIM’s development and a deeply personal return to where his interest in technology began.

“I’d been talking about distributed computing for about ten years. But now it has a job.”

Shastri says the idea behind PANIM predates the current AI boom. The concept became increasingly relevant as AI models began demanding substantially more computing capacity, while billions of devices and machines around the world continued operating independently.

“We’re building gigantic machines again,” Shastri says. “Meanwhile, there are millions of smaller machines around the world, operating separately.”

PANIM’s approach is designed to explore whether suitable AI workloads can be handled through networks of smaller computing resources rather than relying exclusively on increasingly large centralized infrastructure.

From distributed computing to real-world applications

The company is initially looking toward agriculture as one of its key testing environments.

Modern agriculture increasingly relies on satellite imagery, weather data, soil measurements, drones, plant imaging and other data sources. Processing that information at scale can require significant computing resources, particularly as AI becomes more deeply integrated into agricultural analysis and decision-making.

PANIM intends to use India as a real-world environment to evaluate how distributed AI infrastructure can support these types of workloads.

“We’re building AI infrastructure. Agriculture is one of the areas where we think distributed infrastructure deserves serious real-world testing.”

Shastri emphasizes that PANIM’s objective is not to position itself as an agriculture company, but to test its infrastructure in an industry where access to affordable and scalable computing could have practical applications.

“First you test. You listen. You discover which assumptions were wrong. Then perhaps you have something useful.”

From childhood curiosity to a computing company

Shastri’s interest in distributed technology began long before PANIM existed.

His grandfather, Prakash Shastri, taught aerospace engineering at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. As a child, Shastri remembers visiting his grandfather’s office and becoming fascinated by aircraft models, circuit boards and technical equipment.

His grandfather also introduced him to an idea that would stay with him for decades: that the future of computing might depend not only on making individual machines more powerful, but on enabling machines to work together.

“What would matter wouldn’t necessarily be how powerful one machine was, but how many machines could work together.”

Shastri was five years old at the time.

A few years later, his family lost their home in Bangalore after his father experienced severe financial difficulties. In 1999, Shastri and his family moved to Leicester, UK, where his parents rebuilt their lives.

His mother, who had been a mathematics teacher in India, initially worked outside her profession while obtaining the British qualifications needed to continue her career.

The experience shaped Shastri’s broader view of unused human and technological capacity.

“The world has an enormous amount of unused capacity. Human capacity and technological capacity. The problem isn’t always that we don’t have enough. Sometimes what already exists simply isn’t connected.”

Building PANIM

Shastri later studied computer science and met the person who would eventually become his co-founder.

The two began exploring the practical possibilities of distributed computing, although PANIM itself did not emerge immediately.

According to Shastri, the rapid expansion of AI provided the catalyst.

“I kept looking at that and thinking: We’re building gigantic machines again,” he says.

The company’s early development involved multiple hardware prototypes, with some proving considerably more successful than others.

“The third caught fire.”

The fourth prototype worked. By the fifth iteration, the team had developed a platform stable enough to begin presenting the technology to investors and potential partners.

PANIM’s current hardware concept is based around a compact computing device, approximately the size of a home router, equipped with specialized AI processing capabilities and secure communications.

Individual devices can connect to power and the internet and become part of a coordinated distributed computing network.

Shastri describes the concept simply:

“Imagine Airbnb, except you’re not renting out your spare room. You’re providing computing capacity.”

Why India, and why now?

PANIM considered multiple markets for its early testing and development, but ultimately chose India.

The country combines a large agricultural sector, expanding digital infrastructure and growing demand for computing resources, making it a significant environment for testing distributed AI infrastructure.

For Shastri, however, the decision carries a significance that extends beyond market opportunity.

He left Bangalore as a nine-year-old after his family lost their home. More than 25 years later, he is preparing to return with a company built around an idea that began during his childhood.

While going through family belongings, Shastri recently found a photograph of his grandfather standing beside an aircraft model.

The photograph brought back the memory of his grandfather’s early explanation of machines working together.

“I thought, Well. That’s slightly ridiculous.”

Today, PANIM is attempting to turn that childhood idea into operating infrastructure.

From an idea to its first real test

The upcoming work in India represents a new stage for PANIM rather than the conclusion of its story.

Shastri does not describe the company’s return to Bangalore as a “full circle” moment.

“‘Full circle’ makes it sound finished.”

Instead, he sees the field testing as the beginning of the next phase: taking a concept developed over years into real-world operating conditions, where assumptions can be tested and the technology can be improved.

“Things will go wrong,” he says. “We’ll discover assumptions that were stupid. We’ll probably find problems we haven’t even considered yet.”

“That’s what field testing is for.”

“It feels like we’re finally getting to the beginning.”

Media Contact Information
Morissa Reiss
contacts@panim.app