Press Release
Merino Industries Ltd. and GESAB have officially unveiled their strategic partnership at ISE 2026 in Barcelona, announcing the launch of a Make-in-India, mission-critical control room platform designed specifically for India and selected South Asian markets.
The collaboration brings together GESAB’s global design leadership in high-performance control room environments with Merino’s industrial manufacturing strength and nationwide execution capabilities in India. Under the partnership, all system architecture, ergonomic concepts, product engineering, software interfaces and design validation remain fully conceived, governed and controlled by GESAB, while Merino focuses on localized manufacturing, regulatory compliance, supply-chain execution and market deployment within India.
GESAB contributes over 30 years of international experience in the design and delivery of mission-critical control rooms across defence, transport, energy, security and public infrastructure sectors worldwide. Merino adds more than five decades of industrial manufacturing expertise, financial scale and a robust pan-Indian operational footprint. Together, the companies deliver a design-to-deployment solution that integrates consoles, visualization, software integration and lifecycle services, without compromising global standards.
India is undergoing a decisive transformation in how national infrastructure is conceived and operated. Accelerated investments in airports, metros, defence systems, energy grids, maritime networks, smart cities and digital public infrastructure are turning mission-critical operations into digital command layers over sovereign assets. As this layer expands, the control room evolves from a peripheral facility into the operational cockpit of modern infrastructure.
This evolution aligns with broader trends across the Indo-Pacific and the Global South, where nations increasingly prioritise sovereign capability, lifecycle assurance, cybersecurity and interoperability across civil and defence ecosystems. India’s own digital trajectory, from India Stack and Unified Payments Interface to national digital public platforms, demonstrates how globally competitive systems can be built at scale, with resilience and cost efficiency. Mission-critical control environments naturally fit within this logic: integrated design, software-led coordination, transparent data flows and security-sensitive operations.
Historically, control room systems in India and neighbouring markets have relied on imports or fragmented domestic solutions. The Merino & GESAB platform introduces a unified Make-in-India alternative, combining GESAB’s internationally proven designs and standards with local manufacturing, serviceability and compliance. The result is a platform that is price-competitive, scalable and locally supportable, while remaining fully aligned with international certifications and global design benchmarks.
Importantly, the partnership is exclusively oriented to India and defined South Asian territories. GESAB continues to independently design, manufacture and serve all other global markets from its headquarters in Barcelona, preserving full global consistency, quality control and brand governance.
India is entering a phase where mission-critical operations demand levels of ergonomics, design precision and software integration that match the highest global benchmarks. With Merino, we are extending our decades of R&D and global design leadership through a manufacturing and operational partner capable of executing these standards at scale within India. This is not simply a product launch, it represents a structural shift in how control rooms will be designed, built and sustained in the region.
Pere Sabaté, Founder of GESAB, commented about the partnership.
While some market incumbents have operated locally for years, the partnership reframes the category: global R&D ownership and proven international deployments on one side; industrial strength, compliance discipline and Make-in-India execution on the other. This model de-risks procurement decisions for institutional and defence-adjacent projects that demand longevity, documentation rigor, replacement cycles and long-term service assurance.
Our objective is not merely to participate in the control room segment, but to raise its standards in India. By industrialising GESAB’s globally validated designs within a Make-in-India framework, we can offer institutional clients confidence, continuity and long-term value as the country builds its next generation of mission-critical infrastructure.
Madhusudan Lohia, Promoter Director of Merino Industries
Beyond commercial objectives, Merino and GESAB are engaging with system integrators, master system integrators, consultants and institutional stakeholders to establish India’s first Control Room Consortium, a knowledge, certification and collaboration platform aimed at elevating ecosystem benchmarks. The initiative will promote convergence across design excellence, operator health, cybersecurity, interoperability and lifecycle management through technical showcases and structured industry engagement.
ISE 2026 will serve as the international stage for the partnership’s debut, signalling that India’s mission-critical infrastructure sector is ready to move from buyer to builder, from fragmented solutions to globally comparative, sovereign capability, designed by GESAB and executed locally through Merino.
