Abstract
Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) is emerging as the defining enabler of maritime power in the twenty-first century. For India, whose geopolitical and economic interests are deeply tied to the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), maritime security increasingly depends not merely on naval platforms but on the ability to generate persistent, predictive and network-centric awareness across the maritime battlespace. India has developed a substantial MDA framework through the Information Management and Analysis Centre (IMAC), the National Command, Control, Communication and Intelligence (NC3I) network, the Information Fusion Centre–Indian Ocean Region (IFC-IOR), coastal radar chains, Automatic Identification System (AIS) networks and indigenous maritime intelligence platforms. However, the evolving threat environment—including dark shipping, cyber-attacks, grey-zone warfare, underwater threats and drone-enabled maritime terrorism—demands a transition from surveillance-centric systems towards AI-enabled, quantum-ready maritime intelligence architectures. This paper analyses India’s existing MDA ecosystem, identifies its structural and technological limitations, compares it with advanced global systems and proposes the establishment of a National Maritime Technology and Intelligence Centre (NMTIC). The paper argues that India’s future maritime dominance will depend upon integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI), satellite Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities, cyber resilience, Satellite Communication (SATCOM) interception, quantum communication and the National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID) feed into a unified Maritime Intelligence Grid capable of delivering decision superiority across the Indo-Pacific.
