City-born technologist Neeraj Dhopte, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Bengaluru-based Translab Technologies Pvt. Ltd., is bringing his fast-growing data and AI company home. Translab plans a major expansion in Nagpur, betting on the city’s rapidly improving infrastructure and deep pool of engineering talent. The son of a Reserve Bank of India officer and a first-generation entrepreneur, Dhopte studied at Somalwar High School, Ramdaspeth, and earned his engineering degree from Shri Ramdeobaba College of Engineering and Management (RCOEM), Nagpur. He then completed his M.Tech at IIT Roorkee and a data and AI certification at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru. This grounding has shaped Translab’s deep-tech focus.

 

He spent nearly a decade with leading multinationals, where he became the go-to expert for large banking data warehouses. In 2015 he co-founded Translab with Gaganjit Singh Wazir. An enterprise architect with over 18 years of experience, he has represented Translab at major industry forums. Today, Translab serves major BFSI and healthcare organisations across India and abroad, with a presence in the UK, US, Canada and Singapore. In India alone, its turnover crossed Rs 200 crore in the last financial year. The company’s flagship innovation is Tantor, India’s own Sovereign Semantic Data Fabric and Agentic AI platform, built for BFSI, healthcare and government. Tantor lets enterprises run advanced AI on their own infrastructure, keeping sensitive data within India and in line with Indian regulatory and data-protection norms. It is already live at leading Indian institutions.

 

Nagpur will share in that growth. Translab already has a team in the city and has started campus placements at Nagpur’s engineering colleges. It is setting up a new centre and plans to grow its local team of engineers and tech specialists over the next four to five years, giving local graduates a path to careers in advanced technology without leaving home. “I have a special affection for the city where I grew up,” said Dhopte. “Beyond sentiment, Nagpur is growing at a rapid pace and offers world-class infrastructure that makes it an ideal destination for technology investment,” he added. His homecoming reflects a growing trend of native tech leaders powering Nagpur’s rise as Central India's IT hub.