Ajay Bhatt: One of the successful Indian engineers who put their signature on information technology

He helped define and develop Intel's next-generation client platform architecture. He has contributed to many transformations in computer technologies with more than 30 patents.

Ajay Bhatt, who is mostly known as the inventor of USB in the public, provided the birth of many applications and protocols that have become standard today, with important inventions such as AGP and PCI Express, as well as USB.

Who is Ajay Bhatt?

Ajay Bhatt was born on September 6, 1957 in Banglore, Karnataka, India. It was understood from a young age that he had a high intelligence and imagination. He had a natural interest in designing various tools using objects he found around him. His family wanted him to get a good education because he noticed his talent. Little Ajay, who made his decision to study engineering on his own, received great support from his family in this regard. After primary and secondary education, he completed his undergraduate studies in engineering at Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda. However, he did not find this education sufficient and wanted to improve himself by doing postgraduate education. Then he went to the USA and started his graduate education at The City University of New York. After completing his master's degree, he joined Intel's chipset architecture team at Folsom in 1990.

The 1990s were the years when very important developments were experienced in the field of computer technologies. On the one hand, the memory capacities and processing capabilities of computers were improving, and on the other hand, the number of jobs that could be done on the computer was increasing. However, despite this, sufficient progress had not yet been made in the transfer and storage of digital data. Floppy disks, which continued to be used in the 1990s, were extremely inadequate in data transfer and storage, especially when it comes to multimedia files. Floppy disks were not only limited in capacity, but also had extremely slow read and write speeds and were difficult to use. These products, which are also very vulnerable to physical conditions, led to the development of compact disc (CD) and other storage tools for digital data transfer and storage. These studies continued within Intel, as in many technology companies. With the participation of Ajay Bhatt, Intel had the opportunity to pioneer new technologies to be developed in this regard.

In his professional career, which started at Intel, Ajay Bhatt took part in the development of data transfer and storage technologies. These studies aimed to develop new technologies for the transfer and storage of multimedia files containing mostly images and sound recordings. The USB project was inspired by Ajay Bhatt's idea of ​​developing a universal port for peripheral devices while trying to plug a multimedia card into his computer. The successes that could be achieved in this regard could enable the transportation and storage of digital data in a much larger size than the floppy disks, and also facilitate the processing of the data. Thanks to this technology, a new device could be developed that could be easily attached and removed from the computer. The data flow to be provided by plugging the device into the computer could enable the data in it to be read by the computer. During the copying of the data from the computer to the device, a speed increase could also be achieved on the computer.

“I don't do this for money, I do it to create change. It's not often that one gets a chance to make that big of a change.”

These views of Ajay Bhatt caused great excitement in Intel management, and Ajay Bhatt was provided with the necessary resources and support to develop the project. This newly developed device would be significantly different from computer chips, as it was not mounted on a computer. However, it could give results as fast and effective as computer chips in the transfer and storage of data. To make this possible, Intel assembled a dedicated team of computer engineers led by Ajay Bhatt. This team, which has been working continuously for 6 years, has finally succeeded in developing USB. The name USB given to the newly developed technology was created from the initials of the English Universal Serial Bus expression.

With the invention of USB, Intel gained a very important advantage in the computer market. However, in order for this technology to become widespread, it provided exemption from royalty fees, even though it has all usage rights. In this respect, the invention of USB did not provide any financial gain to Ajay Bhatt and Intel. However, as this technology became more widespread, it set the basic standards for data sharing and storage and strengthened Intel's position in the industry.

When we look at the history of USB, we see that the first USB compatible product was the iMac G3, launched by Apple in 1998. Then came the second version of Windows 98. USB technology has started to spread around the world with a rapid acceleration since the early 2000s. It is estimated that there are currently more than 10 billion USB devices in the world. Compared to first generation USBs, USB 3.0 technology is 400 times faster. It is estimated that the speed increase can be up to 800 times with the improvements to be provided in the future. For his contribution to the development of USB technology, Ajay Bhatt was awarded the Achievement in Excellence Award in 2002. Its popularity increased in the public after the Intel advertisement aired in 2009.