# IIT Hyderabad Student’s AI Tool Cuts Cold-Forging Defects, Wins Japan Job > Source: > Published: 2026-08-02 05:07:22+00:00 **August 2, 2026**, (Inside AI) — An MTech student at **IIT Hyderabad** has built a hybrid physics-ML screening platform that slashes cold-forging die design costs for small manufacturers, winning a gold medal and a job in Japan in the process. **Guna Shekhar Reddy**, a final-year student in the Techno-Entrepreneurship programme, developed the tool after witnessing firsthand how **85%** of India’s casting and cold-forging SMEs lose **10-15%** to defect-driven cost overruns. His platform screens die designs before full simulation runs, catching likely failure modes early and compressing iteration cycles that typically take two to four days. The work earned him the **Academic and Co-curricular Excellence Award** at IITH, a gold medal for balancing strong academics with cross-domain co-curricular work. It also landed him a position at a Japanese firm, where he will continue developing tools that bridge physical manufacturing and machine learning. Reddy’s journey began not in a lab but on shop floors. He visited casting and cold-forging industries near the IITH campus in **Sangareddy**, approaching **10** companies directly. “When people ask how I got design engineers to actually talk to a student, the answer is simple: I went and asked,” he said. Fieldwork included onsite research at **Vedantha Tools**, **Tyche Diecast**, and **Eqic Industries**, with trips to **Pune**, **Chennai**, and **Bengaluru**. ## The Cost Barrier That Breaks Small Shops The core problem is economic. Simulation software that could prevent defects early costs upward of **₹1 crore** annually, a figure out of reach for most SMEs. As a result, a shop capable of serving **40–50** clients a year ends up serving **20–30**. Reddy’s platform sidesteps that barrier by sitting atop existing workflows, screening designs before committing to expensive full simulations. “The hardest part right now is adoption — the platform sits on top of what teams already do, so the value is not obvious until someone has actually used it,” Reddy noted. The prototype, which won a **₹20,000** IITH_BUILD grant from a cohort of over **100** pitches, is now in industry validation with SME design teams testing it against real die geometries and defect data. This approach mirrors broader trends in [physics-informed machine learning](https://arxiv.org/abs/2106.09575), where hybrid models reduce computational costs by embedding known physical laws into neural networks. A 2023 study in the *Journal of Manufacturing Processes* found that such methods can cut simulation time by up to **60%** in metal forming applications, though real-world adoption remains low due to integration challenges. ## From a Village to a Gold Medal Reddy’s path to IIT Hyderabad was unconventional. Born in **Nagaram village** in **Suryapet district**, he grew up in Hyderabad and studied at **Johnson Grammar School** under the ICSE curriculum. His father, who worked in watch distribution for **HMT** and **Sonata**, instilled a philosophy that Reddy credits for his interdisciplinary success. “My father had a line he used often: ‘Jack of all trades, master of none, still better than master of one’,” Reddy recalled. “He believed that a person who could move across domains, that is, someone who refused to be boxed in by a single skill, would always have more to offer than someone who only ever went deep in one direction.” After a BTech in Mechanical Engineering at **Vasavi College of Engineering** with a **7.27** CGPA, Reddy cracked GATE during the pandemic while diving into entrepreneurship literature. His CGPA at IITH now stands at **9.51**. “In undergrad, I simply did not understand what a CGPA means or what it shapes later,” he said. “At IITH, that clarity came early.” The gold medal recognizes not just grades but co-curricular breadth. Reddy stayed involved in multiple clubs, picking up working knowledge across fields. “I found I could stay involved in a few clubs at a time, pick up working knowledge across different areas, and let each one inform the others, exactly the way my father had always described a life well-lived.” Reddy’s upcoming move to Japan marks a new chapter, but his focus remains on the shop floor. The platform’s success will depend on convincing SMEs that a lightweight screening tool can outperform intuition without disrupting daily operations. For an industry where margins are thin and trust is earned through results, that may be the hardest simulation of all.