K. T. Rama Rao, Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) Working President, recently highlighted a decline in IT employment in Telangana. He shared data showing that the number of jobs in the sector dropped from 1,27,594 in 2022-23 to just 40,285 in 2023-24. 

Well, the picture is not much different in the entire country. As per the Nasscom data, the IT sector will create only 60,000 new jobs in FY24 compared to 2,70,000 jobs that were created by the sector in the previous fiscal year.

And with Indian IT companies like Wipro, TCS, and Infosys delaying the onboarding of 10,000 freshers, and refusing to provide a joining date, it is evident that the sector continues to witness a trend of decline.

Is There Anyone Hiring?

In FY24, Infosys hired 11,900 freshers, marking a significant 76% decrease from the 50,000 hired in FY23. Similarly, TCS recruited 40,000 freshers in FY24, experiencing a slight reduction from the 44,000 hired the previous year. 

Wipro’s hiring also dropped by up to 50%, with only 10,000–12,000 freshers onboarded in FY24, compared to 20,000 in FY23. 

On the other hand, Cognizant and Capgemini were more aggressive in their FY23 hiring, bringing on 60,000 and 61,182 freshers, respectively, though data for FY24 isn’t provided for these two companies.

The trend of this decline in hiring is accompanied by an increase in layoffs. India’s IT sector laid off around 20,000 techies during the calendar year 2023, described as a “silent layoff,” according to data shared by All India IT & ITeS Employees’ Union (AIITEU).

Sources indicated that Infosys laid off nearly 200-500 employees in 2024, though company CEO Salil Parekh said that there were no plans for downsizing or job cuts. Further, the January 2024 report mentioned that Wipro is firing a mid-level workforce to enhance profit margins. 

Is GenAI the Reason?

Funnily enough, at the same time, many of the graduates do not want to join the Indian IT firms. The reluctance of recent graduates to pursue careers in Indian IT can be attributed to the prolonged stagnation of entry-level salaries, which have remained at INR 3.5-4 LPA for over a decade. High-paying product companies with compensation packages ranging from Rs 10-20 LPA have become more attractive.

Meanwhile, Indian IT is upskilling its existing employees with genAI, instead of hiring new ones. This is also one of the reasons why the workforce is declining and the benches are full. 

As of Feb 2024, the top 10 Indian IT services companies including TCS collectively had nearly 450 genAI projects and proofs of concept (PoCs) in development, reflecting a current deal pipeline valued between $150 million and $250 million, as per the data by market intelligence firm UnearthInsight. 

Sonata Software, a mid-tier IT company, reported that around 80% of its project pipeline is focused on genAI, according to chief information officer Samir Dhir. The company has a $50 million AI deal pipeline. 

Out of 6,532 employees only about 2,000 are currently trained in genAI, with the company aiming for 50% of its staff to be trained in this field by 2025. 

Therefore, freshers need to be already trained with genAI if they want to compete with the ones being trained at the IT firms. But, there is a significant gap between the curricula and industry expectations when it comes to employees being generative AI ready. 

Despite this, 70% of academic institutions believe their graduates are job-ready. In reality, only 16% of companies share the same view. 

In June, TCS struggled to hire for 80,000 job openings citing skill gap as the reason. The same is true for Wipro. The IT giant recently announced that it is now rolling out 30,000 offer letters for freshers from 2022 with a compensation of INR 3.5 LPA, and other CGPA requirements. 

The truth is that it is extremely difficult to find good, or even decent, software engineers with coding skills for such small compensation. At the same time, there is a supply of mediocre graduates who are not ready for taking up jobs. 

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The global consulting and technology services firm Capgemini shared that the company’s leadership in AI services is well recognised by industry analysts. And generative AI continues to drive client discussions, leading to larger-scale deployment projects.

Capgemini is currently engaged in over 350 new projects, with more than 2,000 deals in the pipeline. The company has also scaled its capabilities by training over 120,000 employees on generative AI tools and continues to invest in related tools, assets, and platforms.

Capgemini generated revenues of €11,138 million in H1 2024, reflecting a year-on-year decrease of 2.5% on a reported basis and 2.6% at constant exchange rates. Despite this decline, the demand environment shows signs of gradual improvement. 

Following a challenging first quarter, revenue growth rates improved in the second quarter across all business segments and nearly all regions and sectors. Group revenues in Q2 contracted by 1.9% at constant exchange rates and 2.3% on an organic basis.

In the first half of the year, clients focused on enhancing efficiency through cost transformation programs, with continued demand for non-strategic discretionary deals. However, Capgemini’s cutting-edge services in the Cloud, Data & AI, and the Intelligent Industry maintained solid traction.

Accenture is Here too

Accenture announced over $900 million in new bookings for generative AI, reaching a total of $2 billion fiscal year-to-date during its Q3 FY24 earnings report.

“We have achieved two significant milestones this quarter — with $2 billion in generative AI sales year-to-date and $500 million in revenue year-to-date — demonstrating our early lead in this critical technology,” the company said in a statement.

“We also continue to steadily increase our data and AI workforce, reaching approximately 55,000 skilled data and AI practitioners, against our goal of doubling our data and AI workforce from 40,000 to 80,000 by the end of FY2026,” said Accenture CEO Julie Sweet during the earnings call.

Meanwhile, Indian IT majors like TCS have doubled up on its AI game. The IT giant announced that it is doubling its AI pipeline to $1.5 billion this quarter, from the $900 million pipeline reported in the previous one.

TCS is now also working on around 270 AI projects worldwide. Moreover, in Q1 FY25, it applied for 154 patents and was granted 277, as revealed by TCS chief K Krithivasan. Regardless, Krithivasan said that TCS is still only experimenting with generative AI, admitting that deriving business value would take

Even Infosys has emphasised its dedication to generative AI in its latest Q1 FY25 results, but not revealed the numbers.

“We continue to see strong traction from our clients for generative AI programs delivered through Topaz. Enterprises are focusing on leveraging their own datasets for use in generative AI and large language models, which are creating a significant impact for them,” said Salil Parekh, CEO and MD of Infosys.

In Q1 FY25 earnings, Indian IT company, Wipro mentioned that it has achieved a significant win in the automotive manufacturing segment, where a US-based OEM selected the company to streamline global infrastructure services using automation and AI for improved user experience and reduced costs. 

Wipro’s AI Game

Wipro is focusing on AI-powered solutions through a consulting-led approach to transform clients’ business models. Recent wins include a project with a US-based health solutions company to integrate CMS guidelines into billing, and a collaboration with a North American financial services company to develop a GenAI-powered assistant for wealth management. 

Wipro is also dedicated to building talent, having provided foundational AI training to over 225,000 employees and advanced training to an additional 30,000. Utilising its in-house AI expertise, it is developing GenAI solutions across all units and functions, aiming to boost employee capabilities and make the company GenAI-ready. 

Further, the company is driving innovation and enhancing productivity through investments in the Lab 45 AI platform and Wipro Enterprise GenAI Studio, incorporating various GenAI tools into the software development lifecycle.

Well, HCL continues to see numerous opportunities in AI and generative AI (GenAI) business trends. They launched HCLTech AI Force, a generative AI and automation platform, and the HCLTech Enterprise AI Boundary suite to simplify and scale enterprise AI journeys. 

Notable AI-led engagements include implementing a GenAI-based solution for a global technology major and automating gaming review analysis, which resulted in significant workload reduction and a 119% increase in game reviews. 

Additionally, they are transforming the client’s content lifecycle management with GenAI features. 

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After feeling good about its work with generative AI in the previous quarter, Infosys has yet again emphasised on its dedication to generative AI at its latest Q1 FY25 results, but not revealed the numbers.

“We continue to see strong traction from our clients for generative AI programs delivered through Topaz. Enterprises are focusing on leveraging their own datasets for use in generative AI and large language models, which are creating a significant impact for them,” said Salil Parekh, CEO and MD. 

“We are not at this stage disclosing and quantifying externally our revenue from it. The work we are doing is quite incredible. The focus is really on what enterprises are doing for generative AI,” said Parekh. “We are not combining generative AI revenue with other revenue,” he added that Infosys’ approach towards generative AI for clients has the leadership in the market.

“In any of our offerings that we are deploying [generative AI], we make sure that we get the full benefit of it,” said Parekh, while adding that this is what is driving Infosys to be an AI-first company.

“We had that view when we became digital first, cloud first, and now AI first. That positions us very differently with our clients,” he added.

Meanwhile, TCS has doubled up on its AI game. The IT giant announced that it is doubling its AI pipeline to $1.5 billion this quarter, from the $900 million pipeline reported in the previous one.

In the last result, Infosys said that it was managing over 225 generative AI programs for its clients. A key aspect of executing these complex transformations is talent.

TCS is now also working on around 270 AI projects worldwide. Moreover, in Q1 FY25, it applied for 154 patents and was granted 277, as revealed by TCS chief K Krithivasan. Regardless, Krithivasan said that TCS is still only experimenting with generative AI, admitting that deriving business value would take time. 

Regardless, Infosys had another strong quarter of large deal wins with 34 large deals at a total contract value of $4.1 billion. The acquisition of in-tech is also now complete, which was announced during the last call. 

Infosys, under the leadership of Parekh, announced a 7.1 percent YoY increase in net profit, reaching Rs 6,368 crore for the June quarter, compared to Rs 5,945 crore in the same period last year. 

“We had an excellent start to FY25 with strong and broad-based growth, operating margin expansion, robust large deals, and highest ever cash generation. This is a testimony to our differentiated service offerings, enormous client trust, and relentless execution”, said Parekh.

The company’s revenue for the quarter saw a 3.6 percent YoY growth, amounting to INR 39,315 crore, up from INR 37,933 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous year. Analysts had anticipated a net profit rise of up to 10 percent with a modest single-digit revenue growth.

“With our focused approach for generative AI for enterprises working with their data sets on a cloud foundation, we have strong traction with our clients. This is building on our Topaz and Cobalt capabilities” Parekh added.

Infosys’ total employee count was 3,15,332, a decrease from 3,17,240 in the March quarter. The voluntary attrition rate stood at 12.7 percent, compared to 12.6 percent in March and 17.3 percent in the same quarter last year. 

“Our utilisation is already at 85%. We have little headroom now left. As we start seeing growth, we are looking at hiring 15-20,000 freshers this year,” said Jayesh Sanghrajka, CFO of Infosys.

Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani had earlier revealed that the company’s early investment in generative AI (through the Infosys Topaz platform) has positioned it as a leader in AI services, with recognition from seven out of eight leading analysts.

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India boasts the world’s highest number of female STEM graduates, with women making up about 40% of these degree holders.

In 2020, a World Bank report highlighted global trends in women’s participation in STEM, revealing higher graduation rates for women compared to men. However, only 14% of these women make it into the workforce.

Women are notably underrepresented in fields such as engineering, Information and Communication Technology (ICT), and physics. 

According to an HRD ministry report for the academic year 2019-2020, the percentage of girls admitted in core engineering disciplines is as follows- mechanical engineering: 5.9%, civil engineering: 22.5%, metallurgical engineering: 22.7%, chemical engineering: 23.2% and electrical engineering: 27.3%.

These figures highlight the critical need to bridge the gap between education and employment for women in STEM. And with initiatives by Infosys Foundation and TalentSprint, things are slowly changing. 

Efforts to Close Gender Gap in Engineering

Sudha Murthy broke barriers as the first woman in India to study mechanical engineering, who then went on to become the chairperson of Infosys Foundation (now former). Today, her legacy of defying societal expectations is echoed in the journey of Ashna Kapoor, a young woman from Amritsar.

Kapoor convinced her family to support her dream of pursuing engineering, a path that led her to a career at Arcesium. She attributes it to the empowerment she gained from a Woman Engineering program. 

Kapoor’s story is just one of many that showcase how such programs can challenge and change gender stereotypes. 

Take Dharani Devi, for instance. Despite battling a medical condition and lacking a background in computer science, she secured a six-month internship followed by a permanent position at American Express, all thanks to an engineering program that helped her. 

In a significant move to further this cause, the Infosys Foundation recently signed an MoU with ICT Academy of Tamil Nadu, a non-profit organisation, to increase the employability of young learners in rural India.  

The partnership further aims to establish ‘Centers of Excellence for Women and Youth Empowerment’ in over 450 colleges in India, that will serve as the hubs for skill development and training, both online and offline, as well as enable job placements. 

The curriculum includes 80 hours of core skills training, 20 hours of soft skills development, and placement facilitation for certified students. 

The centres will also host youth empowerment summits and coding practice sessions to tackle real-world problems, ensuring that participants are well-equipped for the challenges of the tech industry. 

TalentSprint Walks the Same Path

Similarly, TalentSprint, an Indian edtech company, is creating an ecosystem of women in tech talent through its Women in Software Engineering (WISE) and the Women Engineers program (WE).

Supported by Google, the WE program aims to enable enterprising and aspiring women engineering students from diverse socio-economic backgrounds to aspire and achieve high-growth tech careers.

Rohit Agarwal, chief delivery officer, TalentSprint, mentioned, “This commitment to inclusivity is evident in the program’s makeup: 39% of participants come from low-income families, 32% are first-generation graduates, and 25% hail from rural and semi-urban areas.” 

“By offering targeted support, resources, and opportunities, WE foster a more inclusive and supportive ecosystem for women in Indian tech.”

So far, the program has received over 1,30,000 applicants from 11,000+ pin codes and 100+ tier 2 colleges in the last 6 cohorts and substantially created an impact across India.

Through financial assistance, including 100% scholarship and additional cash support, the program empowers aspiring women engineers to pursue and excel in their academic and professional endeavours. 

Selected participants not only receive financial support but also gain access to various resources. This includes mentorship by Google engineers, specialised boot camps, networking events, and avenues for potential career opportunities. 

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Nandan Nilekani, the co-founder of Infosys has revealed that its early investment in generative AI, through its Infosys Topaz platform, has positioned it as a leader in AI services, with recognition from seven out of eight leading analysts.

“Infosys is fully prepared to deliver value,” Nilekani stated. “We made an early investment last year in building a strong generative AI offering portfolio through Infosys Topaz. Today, we are ranked as a leader in AI services by seven out of eight leading analysts.”

Infosys is currently managing over 225 generative AI programs for its clients. A key aspect of executing these complex transformations is talent. The acquisition of Danske IT and Support Services in India has strengthened Infosys’ digital talent pool. 

“We have invested significantly in hiring talent with proven generative AI skills as well as rapidly upskilling our existing engineering talent,” Nilekani emphasised. Infosys now boasts over 250,000 employees trained in generative AI.

The integration of generative AI components into all service lines and the development of 25 playbooks have allowed Infosys to create significant impacts for its clients. By combining AI with cloud capabilities via Infosys Cobalt, clients are scaling their AI operations more effectively. This effort is part of a broader strategy to drive exponential growth in AI and advance the company’s Chip-to-Cloud strategy.

To bolster this strategy, Infosys acquired InSemi, a semiconductor design services provider, enhancing its domain-relevant enterprise AI capabilities. “We have created 23 AI industry blueprints to solve industry-specific challenges,” Nilekani noted. Strategic acquisitions, such as that of in-tech, an engineering R&D services firm, further deepen Infosys’ capabilities, particularly in the automotive sector with software-defined vehicles.

The Love for Indian Developers

Additionally, Infosys is one of the largest adopters of GitHub Copilot globally, with employees generating over three million lines of code using generative AI large language models. 

“We’re working on projects across software engineering, process optimisation, customer support, advisory services, and sales and marketing,” said Salil Parekh, Infosys CEO, during the company’s last quarterly call. “We’re working with market-leading open access and closed large language models,” he added, saying that Infosys feels good about its work with generative AI.

Just this month, in a significant move towards accelerating digital transformation in India, GitHub has partnered with Infosys to launch the first GitHub Centre of Excellence in Bangalore. This initiative aims to leverage AI and advanced software solutions to drive global economic growth.

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Infosys has unveiled its latest offering, Infosys Aster, an AI-amplified marketing suite to simplify brand experiences and accelerate business growth. 

With over 400 assets and a robust ecosystem of 50+ partners, Infosys Aster aims to deliver impactful outcomes for leading B2C and B2B brands globally. The company said that global brands using Infosys Aster have realised up to a 50% increase in repeat buyers, a 30% improvement in the cost of marketing operations, and a 40% increase in sales.

According to Infosys, the new suite is powered by Infosys Topaz, enabling companies to increase ROI from marketing by leveraging transformative generative AI capabilities. With creative services, experience design, digital commerce, MarTech orchestration, performance marketing, and marketing operations, Infosys Aster brings agility to the marketing value chain for B2B and B2C brands.

“In today’s dynamic digital landscape, businesses need marketing to be their core engine for reimagining customer experience and driving growth,”said Sumit Virmani, EVP and Global Chief Marketing Officer at Infosys. “Infosys Aster leverages AI to amplify our capabilities, deepening brand experiences while driving effectiveness and efficiencies.”

Satish H C, EVP and Co-head of Delivery at Infosys, emphasised the suite’s role in helping clients master marketing effectiveness and efficiency, saying, “Infosys Aster helps our clients’ marketing organisations master the duality of marketing effectiveness and marketing efficiency to truly transform into customer-champions and growth-partners.”

The suite’s capabilities extend across delivering engaging brand experiences, enhancing marketing efficiency, and accelerating business effectiveness. By leveraging advanced technologies like Unreal Engine 3D, AR/VR/XR, and digital twin CGI modeling, Infosys Aster delivers immersive experiences that foster customer intimacy. 

One such success story includes its partnership with an international racing giant, where Infosys Aster created a customised digital ecosystem to boost engagement and drive conversions.

Commenting on the potential of AI in marketing, Peter Bendor-Samuel, Founder & CEO of Everest Group, said , “AI presents immense value to marketers, from driving hyper personalization to promising enhanced efficiencies and effectiveness across insights generation, creative workflows, and customer support.”

Infosys Aster’s ecosystem includes WongDoody, Infosys’ creative digital innovation agency, which brings unique capabilities in creative consulting, experience design, and future-proof marketing. The suite has already garnered over 350 global awards and collaborates with 50+ partners, showcasing its impact on global B2B and B2C marketers.

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Infosys and ServiceNow today announced a strengthened collaboration to transform customer experiences with generative AI‑powered industry solutions, at ServiceNow’s annual customer and partner event Knowledge 2024.

The collaboration aims to increase productivity, enhance efficiency, and improve user experience for organisations by combining ServiceNow’s Now Assist generative AI capabilities and Infosys Cobalt, a set of services, solutions, and platforms designed to accelerate cloud‑powered enterprise transformation.

As part of this broader AI‑first, industry‑first strategy, Infosys will also double its investment in training by certifying more than 3,500 employees with ServiceNow GenAI skills.

“The combination of ServiceNow GenAI capabilities with Infosys’ industry expertise is a prime example of how our partners are integral to driving digital transformation forward for more organizations,” said Erica Volini, senior vice president, global partnerships and channels at ServiceNow.

“Our longstanding collaboration with Infosys demonstrates the potential for our ecosystem to yield real, impactful results for customers. We are helping shape the future of GenAI’s impact on enterprise productivity, with skills training GenAI,” Volini added.

In collaboration with ServiceNow, Infosys will develop new industry applications into the Infosys Enterprise Service Management (ESM) Café, the AI‑powered plug‑and‑play solution which is already helping ServiceNow customers accelerate time to value.

Infosys is also investing in the creation of a Pro Plus BOT factory, which can offer more than 100,000 Now Assist‑powered chatbots so customers can realize value in their AI journey.

Through this expanded collaboration, ServiceNow and Infosys will address critical business process challenges for enterprises across telecom, financial services, manufacturing, and retail.

The new offerings will aim to deliver significant benefits to customers, including up to 20% improvement in operational efficiency, 5‑time faster increase in response time, and 30% reduction in implementation timelines.

At the same time, the applications will deliver insights on large transformation engagements using GenAI. The collaboration is currently enabling customers such as Carrier, a world leader in high‑technology heating, air‑conditioning, and refrigeration solutions, to address key business problems, including experience, underutilized AI‑based platform capabilities, and isolated processes.

Through more than 10 years of collaboration, Infosys and ServiceNow have made substantial investments in R&D, infrastructure, and talent development, resulting in improved product capabilities and market expansion.

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Infosys has announced its acquisition of in-tech, a top Engineering R&D services provider focused on the German automotive industry. This strategic move enhances Infosys’ capabilities in the engineering R&D space and strengthens its commitment to clients navigating digital engineering.

Based in Germany, in-tech specialises in digitisation in automotive, rail transport, and smart industry sectors. It offers solutions in e-mobility, autonomous driving, and electric vehicles. in-tech’s client portfolio includes marquee German original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and a multidisciplinary team of 2,200 people across multiple countries.

Read: Infosys Feels Good About Its Work with Generative AI

Dinesh Rao, EVP and Co-Delivery Head at Infosys, said the collaboration bolsters Infosys’ capabilities in automotive innovation and software-defined vehicles. “Infosys continues to strengthen its Engineering R&D leadership with decades of experience in digital engineering. Together with in-tech, Infosys Topaz, an AI-first set of services, solutions and platforms, and recently acquired InSemi’ semiconductor’s expertise, we have successfully created deeper capabilities for the next phase of automotive innovation in the arena of software defined vehicles. We are excited to welcome in-tech and its leadership team into the Infosys family.”

Jasmeet Singh, EVP and Global Head of Manufacturing, emphasised the partnership’s potential to bring high-quality, innovative products to market quickly.

in-tech CEO Tobias Wagner noted the partnership’s potential for unprecedented growth and value for clients. “Over the past 22 years, we have created an impressive company history, characterised by organic growth, strategic acquisitions and high profitability. This strategic partnership with Infosys represents a decisive turning point for us: It opens up unprecedented growth opportunities, and also adds tremendous value to our offering for our clients. Together we now cover the entire end-to-end process, a step that is crucial to fully meet our customers’ needs. With access to more talent and expertise, we gain incredible strength and scale in our delivery capability, enabling us to successfully implement even more ambitious projects.”

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After showing little to no confidence in generative AI in the last quarter, Infosys revealed in its Q4FY24 quarterly reports that the IT giant is seeing excellent traction with its clients for generative AI work. However, this quarter, as well, it did not disclose the revenue from generative AI. 

Meanwhile, during its recent earnings, TCS revealed that it has an AI and generative AI pipeline worth $900 million, as CEO and MD K Krithivasan revealed during the Q4 2024 earnings call. This figure nearly matches the revenue achieved by rival Accenture, which totalled $1.1 billion in the first two quarters.

“We’re working on projects across software engineering, process optimisation, customer support, advisory services, and sales and marketing,” said Salil Parekh, Infosys CEO. We’re working with market-leading open access and closed large language models,” he added, saying that Infosys feels good about its work with generative AI.

Infosys also announced the acquisition of in-tech for 100% of the equity for €450 million. According to a company filing, the acquisition is anticipated to be completed within the first half of fiscal year 2025, pending the satisfaction of customary closing conditions. This strategic move enhances Infosys’ capabilities in the engineering R&D space and strengthens its commitment to clients navigating digital engineering.

For this acquisition, Infosys has received approvals from regulatory authorities in Germany, Romania, Austria, India and such other regulatory approvals as required.

“We are not, at this stage, publicly sharing what the Generative AI revenue is, but we have tremendous capability, a good leading market position, and we feel, in generative AI, we are very strong in the capabilities,” he said.

Giving an example, Parekh said that in software development, Infosys has generated over 3 million lines of code using one of the generative AI and large language models in the public domain. 

Infosys recorded $4.4 billion worth large deals, which is the highest ever last deal value in the financial year for the company.

“In several situations, we’ve chained the large language models with client specific data within our projects. We’ve put generative AI in our services and developed playbooks for each of our offerings,” said Parekh, which is all part of Infosys Topaz generative AI offerings.

He also said that Infosys is committed to ethical and responsible use of AI. Infosys became the first IT services company globally to achieve the ISO 42,001 to 2020 disease certification.

Parekh added that since data has become the critical enabler for making generative AI successful in an enterprise AI deployment, the IT giant is making sure that the access to the data for its client remains streamlined.

Infosys reported a 30% increase in consolidated net profit, reaching Rs 7,969 crore for the quarter. This is in contrast to the INR 6,128 crore profit reported during the same quarter last year.

Parekh said that Infosys has trained 8 out of 10 of its total employees in generative AI, but that has not made any impact on its hiring strategy. In September last year, NVIDIA announced a partnership with Infosys for revolutionising the world of enterprise AI. It also unveiled plans to establish the NVIDIA Center of Excellence’, dedicated to training and certifying 50,000 of its employees in NVIDIA AI technology.

The IT giant reported a decrease in its workforce for the fiscal year 2024, marking a decline of 25,994 employees, a first since at least 2001. The company’s total headcount for FY24 stood at 317,240, a 7.5% reduction compared to the previous year. 

In terms of quarterly changes, Infosys saw a reduction of 5,423 employees, marking the fifth consecutive quarter of decline. Additionally, the attrition rate for the fourth quarter on a last twelve-month basis fell to 12.6% from 12.9%.

TCS also announced that it has trained over 350,000 employees in AI/ML, including GenAI. Moreover, TCS is also a launch partner for the newly announced AWS Generative AI Competency.

Parekh also consistently highlighted Infosys’ expansion in Europe with its latest proximity centre in Sofia, Bulgaria. The IT giant is committed to fostering local talent and nurturing innovation, aiming to hire, attract, and upskill 500 new employees over the next four years.

Recently, Infosys also announced a strategic partnership with Intel, integrating Intel technologies such as 4th and 5th Gen Intel Xeon processors, Intel Gaudi 2 AI accelerators, and Intel Core Ultra into Infosys Topaz. This collaboration aims to offer AI-first services, solutions, and platforms to accelerate business value through generative AI technologies.

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Not many are aware that IT consulting giant Infosys, together with Elon Musk, AWS, YC Research, and a few others, had donated a sizable $1 billion to OpenAI back in 2015, when the latter began as a non-profit organisation. 

But what transpired thereafter and why is Infosys not the Microsoft of IT consulting?

The donation to OpenAI, previously undisclosed, occurred during Vishal Sikka’s tenure as the leader of Infosys. Sikka, a strong advocate for AI, played a significant role in facilitating the donation to the freshly-minted AI company. Additionally, he acted as an advisor to OpenAI, along with Yoshua Bengio, Sergey Levine, Pieter Abbeel, and Alan Kay.

“Our wish is that together the OpenAI team will do unfettered research in the most important, most relevant dimensions of AI, no matter how long it takes to get there, not limited to just identifying dancing cats in videos, but to creating ideas and inventions that amplify our humanity,” Sikka said, in an Infosys blog post in 2015, identifying with OpenAI’s mission. 

A donation that didn’t become an investment

Sikka’s decision to invest in OpenAI was influenced by its open-source philosophy. “If complex systems are not open, not open to be used, extended, and learned about, they end up becoming yet another mysterious thing for us, ones that we end up praying to and mystifying. The more open we make AI, the better,” he said, pointing out that openness was the most important factor behind investing in OpenAI.

Sikka had previously said that Infosys would benefit heavily from OpenAI because of the products and intelligent software systems that Altman was hoping to build and maintain for all domains and industries. “In addition, as a large services company, many parts of our work can transform fundamentally with AI,” he said. 

In August 2017, Sikka stepped down from his role as managing director and chief executive at Infosys. With his departure, the initiative to integrate OpenAI’s technology into Infosys came to an abrupt halt. 

In 2019, Sikka launched ‘Vianai‘ with an initial funding of $50 million. The startup devised its unique programming language aimed at facilitating the adoption of AI and machine learning techniques by a broader range of developers and organisations.

However, significant changes have occurred since then. OpenAI moved on from being a non-profit organisation to a for-profit entity with a capped return in 2019. Then there was a billion-dollar investment from Microsoft, for which Musk recently took OpenAI to court. The original donors did not get any equity in the company after the Microsoft investment. 

On a different note, Altman recently claimed that Musk wanted Tesla to acquire OpenAI and turn it into a for-profit company in 2018, since he thought the company would fail. “He wanted OpenAI to be basically acquired by Tesla in the same way that… or maybe something similar… or maybe something more dramatic than the partnership with Microsoft (sic),” said Altman. 

Disagreements occurred, and Musk left. 

What’s up with Infosys in GenAI

Sikka’s recognition of OpenAI’s potential at an early stage and his willingness to embrace it underscore his status as a far-sighted visionary. Narayan Murthy, the founder of Infosys, also hailed Sikka for his forward-thinking approach. Infosys could have become the Microsoft of IT consulting if it would have made the deal in 2019. 

The current CEO, Salil Parekh, confirmed that Infosys had backed OpenAI through a donation. However, regarding any potential future collaboration with OpenAI, Parekh stated that there were no intentions for investments or engagement in related activities with OpenAI.

In September last year, Infosys had announced a partnership with Microsoft to develop solutions using Infosys Topaz and Azure OpenAI Service jointly and boost enterprise customers’ AI solutions. Parekh had also confirmed that the company was using ChatGPT within the organisation to boost productivity. 

During the same month, Infosys also partnered with NVIDIA to boost adoption in enterprise AI. The partnership unveiled plans to establish the NVIDIA Center of Excellence dedicated to training and certifying 50,000 of its employees in NVIDIA AI technology. 

Moreover, in December last year, Infosys reported the termination of a $1.5 billion deal by a global client. The announcement came a few months after India’s IT giant disclosed the signing of a $1.5 billion agreement with an unnamed global company in September the same year. There is no definite proof of which company it was that cancelled the deal. 

In July, Infosys had also signed a deal with another undisclosed existing client to provide AI services, with the target spend of $2 billion over five years.

Certainly, there’s lots happening to accelerate Infosys’ AI vision under Parekh. But it could have been a lot more beneficial had it been a direct investor in OpenAI, not through Microsoft, or any other company.

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Yann LeCun, the chief of Meta AI was recently on a podcast with Lex Fridman talking about Meta, AI, and AGI. He revealed that he recently met with an Infosys founder who is funding a project based on Llama 2. 

“He’s funding a project to fine-tune Llama 2, the open source model produced by Meta so that it speaks all 22 official languages in India. It’s very important for people in India,” said LeCun. He did not reveal which co-founder he met. 

LeCun was quite impressed by the recently released Kannada Llama. “I love this. This is why open source AI platforms will win: it’s the only way for AI to cater to highly diverse languages, cultures, values, and centers of interest.” he wrote on X, reposting Kannada Llama post.

He also spoke about Moustapha Cisse, who used to be a scientist at Meta FAIR who is also using Llama 2 to build language models in Africa, and catering it for medical use. 

LeCun is a big proponent of open source AI models and recently also posted on X about the training infrastructure of Llama 3, the upcoming AI model of Meta which is expected to be open source as well. 

Infosys was one of the first companies that had invested in OpenAI back in 2015. It donated around USD 1 billion to OpenAI, which was a non-profit back then. Infosys, along with Elon Musk, AWS, YC Research, among others, joined hands to make the USD 1 billion donation to OpenAI.

Apart from Infosys, a lot of Indian companies and startups have been leveraging Llama 2 and making Indic models such as Tamil Llama, Kannada Llama, Telugu Llama, and many more. IIT Bombay’s in work BharatGPT project is also focusing on catering to the 22 Indic languages and is pushing towards being open source.

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Carrying the burden of $1.5 biilion failed AI deal, Infosys showed little to no confidence in generative AI at FY24 Q3 earnings call – the same goes for TCS as well – and we’ll have to wait and watch for HCLTech and Wipro, which are going to announce its quarterly results today. 

Both Infosys and TCS did not reveal revenue numbers or details of their generative AI efforts or initiatives, displaying poor confidence in their efforts, or lacking clarity as to how they are going to win large deals in generative AI.   

The company mentioned about a large deal TCV for the quarter was $3.2 billion, with 71% being net new. However, Infosys’ chief Salil Parekh hesitated to mention the amount attributable to generative AI, or the details of its failed AI deal. “AI has a lot of interest and traction, even if the revenue numbers are small,” he said, without delving into the numbers. 

“We are not, at this stage, publicly sharing what the Generative AI revenue is, but we have tremendous capability, a good leading market position, and we feel, in generative AI, we are very strong in the capabilities,” he said. 

Parekh gave no additional comments when asked about the reason for termination of Infosys’s $1.5 billion deal by a global client. The deal aimed to provide an enhanced digital experience, modernisation, and business operations services over a 15-year period, leveraging Infosys platforms and AI solutions, which might be Topaz. 

However he  mentioned that Infosys has an extremely strong capability set and a lot of activity with its clients. “We are working with a large retail company on their AI First Transformation. This is very strategic work with the client” he said. 

Furthermore he added, “We’re also working with a large global bank on their risk area, using large language models to enhance the risk management for them. So, we have a large number of such deals.” 

Stressing on the capability he said, “We are seeing strong traction for generative AI programs leveraging our Topaz capability. We have integrated our generative AI components into our service line portfolio, creating impact for our clients. We have 100,000 employees trained in generative AI areas.”

“I believe we have incredible capability in Topaz, and clients are also resonating with that capability. We are not calling out the value of generative AI today, but that is a different subject. The work we’re doing, I think, is quite impactful” he added. 

When asked about the clients, he said it’s a mix of both new and existing clients. “We’ve also done what we call a Generative AI Roadshow. It’s a tour where we take all of our capabilities to different locations around the world, and there are some new clients as well for whom we are doing generative AI for the first time,” he added.

On the contrary, global IT giant Accenture revealed that despite revenue growth of a mere 3% with $16.2 billion, it made upwards of $450 million in new bookings from generative AI applications alone, including a deal with McDonald’s and BBVA, amongst others, showcasing confidence in its ability and capability to execute generative AI projects and initiatives. 

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Indian IT giant Infosys announced its definitive agreement to acquire InSemi for ₹280 crore, a prominent semiconductor design and embedded services provider. The company  said it aims to accelerate its Chip-to-Cloud strategy through this collaboration, leveraging InSemi’s niche design skills at scale. 

The company in its statement  said this move aligns seamlessly with Infosys’ existing investments in AI/Automation platforms and industry partnerships, facilitating comprehensive end-to-end product development for clients.

“With the advent of AI, Smart devices, 5G and beyond, electric vehicles, the demand for next-generation semiconductor design services integrated with our embedded systems creates unique differentiators. InSemi is a strategic investment as we usher a next wave of growth and a leadership position in Engineering R&D.” said Dinesh R, EVP & Co-Delivery Head, Infosys.

Founded in 2013, InSemi provides end-to-end semiconductor design services, covering electronic design, platform design, automation, embedded, and software technologies. With a team of over 900+ design specialists, InSemi serves leading global corporations across semiconductor, consumer electronics, automotive, and hi-tech industries. The acquisition is set to strengthen Infosys’ Engineering R&D capabilities and position the company as a leader in this domain.

“With Infosys as our catalyst, it creates a synergistic combination that allows us to scale and bring the power of AI & Engineering R&D and next-generation technology to global clients, expanding across industry sectors. We aim to further accelerate our progress and together with Infosys,  it paves a path of innovation opening new opportunities for our teams”, said Shreekanth Sampigethaya & Arup Dash, Co-Founders, InSemi.

The acquisition is expected to close in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2024, subject to customary closing conditions. 

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For Indian IT, the year 2023 unfolded as a narrative of paradoxes and challenges. While luminaries like TCS, Infosys, HCLTech, Wipro, and Tech Mahindra celebrated record-high deal wins, the overarching ambiguity surrounding revenue growth cast a shadow over the sector’s trajectory for the entire year. 

Industry pundits, reflecting on the incidents of 2023, echoed sentiments of a sector grappling with its weakest performance since the recession of 2008. In the midst of this uncertainty, the beacon of hope for the Indian IT sector emanates from the realm of generative AI. 

Can 2024 be the year of AI deals?

Pareekh Jain, CEO of EIIRTrend, predicts that around 2% of the revenue in the coming year would be through generative AI directly. He also highlighted how AI was one of the positive things in 2023 for Indian IT, and this would influence a lot of partnerships and deals in 2024.

On the contrary, the $1.5 billion Infosys AI deal that got cancelled would also play a major impact in the industry. “A lot of companies would realise that moving too fast and investing in technologies would not be ideal. Thus, they would move with a lot of caution,” said Jain. But he believes that deals would definitely be a big focus this year.

As industry analysts predict a transformation from Q3 onwards, a nuanced narrative of deal divergence and recalibration unfolds. Large deals are anticipated to derive impetus from vendor consolidation, steering away from conventional digital transformation paradigms. 

As generative AI emerges as a focal point of interest, its potential impact on revenue is forecasted to crystallise in the third quarter of 2024. Jain said that though in 2023 AI was not the focus of deal in Indian IT, it was one of the biggest factors of the deals. “Generative AI could also be a deal breaker in 2024,” said Jain, highlighting that it would be the focus. 

That said, direct generative AI focused deals would definitely be the focus. “More than 50% of the deals would be directly influenced by generative AI,” said Jain.

For example, HCLTech announced a slew of new deals, where it will be involved in digital and cloud transformation, alongside generative AI initiatives. TCS also predicts that Indian IT firms would be a major focus globally and expects a lot of new deals in the year, along with 12 million more net jobs by 2025. 

LTIMindtree has expressed its commitment to integrating generative AI into its products and solutions, revealing that they have participated in more than 100 discussions and currently have over 20 active engagements with clients.

Wipro has doubled the number of customers as compared to the last quarter, and would focus on large deals in 2024. HCLTech is working with a handful of customers with generative AI projects, while LTIMindtree is engaged in over 20 clients for generative AI.  

Infosys, along with a few other parties including Elon Musk, AWS and others donated USD 1 billion to OpenAI. TCS and Wipro also announced generative AI capabilities in partnership with Google Cloud.

A lot in the pipeline

Companies have actively discussed various ongoing experiments and proof of concepts (PoCs) in their pipelines. In the previous month, Accenture disclosed an industry-leading generative AI pipeline valued at $450 million in new bookings, a significant increase from the $300 million reported for the entire fiscal year of FY23. 

This along with a $3billion investment in AI for three years. The company anticipates a shift from general AI experimentation to more proof of concepts and pilot projects in 2024.

Similarly, TCS reported having over 250 generative AI opportunities in its pipeline, Infosys is engaged in over 50 active generative AI projects, and HCLTech is involved in more than 140 generative AI PoCs at various stages. 

However, the caveat is that these PoCs are still in the pre-production stage and are far from generating immediate revenue. Analysts believe that only 10% of the PoCs will move to production. Considering this, a rapid recovery in the IT services sector in 2024 seems unlikely. 

Analysts from Kotak note that despite high expectations for a recovery in discretionary spending in 2024, enterprises across most sectors are still focused on cost reduction. Many have set cost-saving targets extending into 2024, and the reprioritisation of spending toward areas of investment is not yet complete.

2023 continued?

During the earnings call, CP Gurnani, former managing director of Tech Mahindra said, “Tech Mahindra is now working in about 60 customer locations on actually using generative AI to enhance operations, innovation, and productivity.” 

On the other hand, Indian IT firms have also largely stopped hiring freshers. This trend might continue this year, along with rampant possible layoffs.

In the initial half of fiscal year 2024, the top-tier IT firms collectively shed 39,000 employees, signalling a strategic recalibration in response to evolving market dynamics. Delays in lateral hires and adjustments in compensation strategies underscored a pragmatic approach to talent acquisition.

Overall, the Indian IT majors have trained close to seven lakh employees in generative AI, in partnership with companies like Google, Microsoft, Oracle and NVIDIA. The monetary impact of the same would be on the forefront of discussions in 2024.

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On Saturday, Infosys reported the termination of a $1.5 billion deal by a global client. The announcement came a few months after India’s IT giant disclosed the signing of a $1.5 billion agreement with an unnamed global company in September, this year.

The deal aimed to provide an enhanced digital experience, modernisation, and business operations services over a 15-year period, leveraging Infosys platforms and AI solutions, which might be Topaz. 

Infosys, in a filing to the exchanges, stated, “The global company has decided to terminate the Memorandum of Understanding, and the parties will not proceed with the Master Agreement.” The filings did not provide the reason for the deal’s cancellation. 

Following the chain of events: was it Palantir?

The abrupt end to the agreement has raised eyebrows in the tech community, sparking speculations and discussions about the underlying reasons and potential players involved. 

The possibility of Palantir being the undisclosed party is something which is being heavily discussed on social media platforms. 

According to the chain of events, this was also possibly linked to the fact that Narayana Murthy, founder of Infosys, and Peter Thiel, the owner of Palantir, had business links. Why this matter is that Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, who is also the son-in-law of Murthy, was “inadvertently” selling the NHS to both the companies for no bid prices. 

Palantir has been accused several times of wanting access to NHS data since COVID.

Adding another layer to the unfolding drama, Infosys announces the departure of its CFO, Nilanjan Roy. The stage is set for Jayesh Sanghrajka, an internal figure, to assume the critical CFO role. Roy’s exit introduces an element of intrigue to Infosys’ leadership dynamics, prompting speculation about potential influences on the company’s financial strategies.

To illustrate, the $1.5 billion deal, when spread over the 15-year span, equates to $100 million annually or $25 million quarterly in revenue. It’s crucial to note that revenue doesn’t directly translate to net profit, and over the years, $25 million per quarter may diminish in real value due to factors like inflation.

In essence, if Palantir is indeed the unnamed company, the impact could be minimal. A 15-year commitment in the dynamic field of  generative AI may not align with Palantir’s strategy of securing favourable deals and avoiding agreements that do not justify their time and resources.

Pareekh Jain, Founder, Pareekh Consulting said, “There is so much change in the business and technology environment that such events reflect the risks associated with large deals in new technology.” He highlighted how such large investments only happen when the technology is established.

The suspected high take-rate for the consulting shop may have prompted Palantir to reassess the terms, leading to strategic recalibration. Terminating a long-term agreement may signal Palantir’s commitment to maintaining adaptability and flexibility in a fiercely competitive market.

The cancellation of this deal also underscores the uncertain economic conditions prevailing in the global economy, impacting the performance of the IT sector. In Q2 FY24, Infosys signed contracts with a total value of $7.7 billion. While the Total Contract Values (TCVs) for major IT firms have shown growth, the transformation into robust revenue growth remains less evident.

What does the cancellation entail?

Talking about Palantir’s flexibility, Infosys’ revelation reverberates through the market, with Wipro stocks experiencing a notable upswing. Market participants are quick to anticipate potential business redirection opportunities arising from the void left by Infosys’ terminated deal.

This scenario reinforces the industry adage — one company’s loss can indeed become another’s gain, highlighting the dynamic nature of the IT services sector.

But this is not the only investment Infosys made. Last week, the IT giant secured a five-year deal from LKQ Europe, an auto parts distributor. Notable among Infosys’ recent large deals is a $1.64 billion agreement with Liberty Global, based in London, spanning five years. 

The involved parties have forged an initial agreement featuring the possibility of extension to eight years or more. During the initial five-year period, Infosys is set to deliver services to Liberty Global valued at $1.64 billion, with the potential to increase to $2.5 billion if the contract is prolonged to eight years.

This partnership enables Liberty Global to achieve ongoing annual savings exceeding €100 million, encompassing additional savings and investments in technology, specifically Topaz. 

In July, Infosys had also said it signed a deal with another undisclosed existing client to provide AI services, with the target spend of $2B over five years.

In a parallel development earlier this year, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) revealed the termination of a $2 billion deal by Transamerica, an insurance player. The deal, initiated in 2018, involved five-and-a-half years of collaboration by TCS. Reliance also announced its partnership with NVIDIA. 

There has been an increasing pressure in Indian IT to adapt generative AI services. Which is what possibilly prompted Infosys to also make this hasty move. 

The post What Happened to the $1.5 Billion Infosys AI Deal? appeared first on AIM.

In its recently announced earnings call, global IT giant Accenture revealed that despite revenue growth of a mere 3% with $16.2 billion, it made upwards of $450 million in new bookings from GenAI applications alone, including a deal with McDonald’s and BBVA, amongst others.

The earnings from GenAI, up 50% from $300 million in the previous quarter, indicate Accenture’s early leadership position in GenAI compared to regional IT providers. The bold proclamation of such a strong number also makes them stand ahead, infusing market confidence in the company. 

“With respect to GenAI, I just want to say $450 million in sales this quarter, we’re very pleased with. It demonstrates we are leading here,” said CEO Julie Sweet.

On the other hand, industry experts anticipate that gen AI’s contribution to the top IT firms’ overall revenue to be less than 1%, even with an increasing number of pilots and partnerships in this emerging field. Apurva Prasad, Vice-President of Institutional Research at HDFC Securities, observed, “The overall scale of AI deployments across sectors…is quite strong. However, generative AI’s contribution as part of it remains small for the time being.” 

Furthermore, in comparison, Indian IT companies like TCS, Infosys, Wipro, HCLTech, and LTIMindtree haven’t released any GenAI-specific numbers indicative of their roadmap or growth indicators. Instead, these companies have focused on partnerships with giants like Microsoft, AWS, and Google. They are focused heavily on employee upskilling and injecting significant investments, with companies like Wipro planning $1 billion in AI over three years, and launching the Wipro AI360 ecosystem. 

GenAI Integration with Overall Strategy

Accenture incorporates GenAI within its broader digital transformation strategies for clients, ensuring alignment with their overall business goals. CEO Julie Sweet emphasised that GenAI is not plug-and-play, but a sophisticated technology requiring deep understanding to be effectively scaled.

“And this is Accenture’s leadership position, right? We have a strategy, consulting, deep industry and functional expertise,” added Sweet, underscoring Accenture’s unique position in this evolving field.

Experts predict GenAI bookings could exceed $4 billion in FY24, with Accenture poised to capture a significant share, backed by its $3 billion investment in data and AI over three years aimed at scaling client value in 2024. The company derives confidence to go all in from its experienced cloud journey

In the realm of acquisitions and partnerships, Accenture’s collaborations with major industry players boost its capacity to merge technology with business value. Sweet foresees 2024 as a pivotal year, transitioning clients from experimentation to scalable GenAI applications.

“Think of 2024 as being the shift for our clients from experimentation to scale, and we believe we’re in the best position to lead that shift to value.” 

Accenture is actively integrating GenAI in client projects, such as developing a GenAI-powered financial coach for BBVA and enhancing content production for a global hospitality group. A key project with McDonald’s focuses on integrating cloud technology and GenAI to revolutionise customer and employee experiences.

The company’s expansion strategy in the space is also marked by significant acquisitions across various regions, totalling $788 million, enhancing cloud capabilities and strengthening its AI expertise. Notably, the acquisition of Ammagamma adds 90 AI specialists to Accenture’s team, contributing to its goal of doubling its skilled data and AI practitioners to 80,000.

Previously,  the company had invested in a total of 11 AI-related businesses, of which three are from India: Flutura, Bridgei2i, and Byte Prophecy, with Flutura being the most recent investment.

A Good Omen for Indian IT

Indian IT companies have also shifted their focus to building a skilled workforce and ramping up their investments in GenAI as clients have shown a willingness to fund early PoC projects—leading to a new wave of collaboration between service providers and their clients to explore GenAI’s potential.

Indian IT majors have trained nearly seven lakh employees in GenAI. TCS has over 100,000 GenAI-ready employees, according to Milind Lakkad, executive vice president and global head – human resources. Infosys has trained 57,000 employees, while Wipro has trained 180,000. HCLTech and LTIMindtree are also focusing on training their employees in GenAI.

Infosys has launched Topaz, focusing on GenAI tech, with CEO Salil Parekh stating the company is engaged in 80 GenAI projects. Meanwhile, Coforge introduced Quasar, a GenAI platform with over 100 cognitive and generative use cases, and LTIMindtree launched Canvas.ai to help clients scale their GenAI capabilities.

Additionally, Accenture, which follows a September to August financial year, disclosed that its GenAI project bookings constitute approximately 2.4% of Accenture’s total workload—which accounted for only 0.6% during the March-May period. This indicates an acceleration in momentum and increasing revenue for the industry.

However, A researcher from a Mumbai-based brokerage, requesting anonymity, said GenAI use cases might eventually lead to faster monetisation, but not immediately. They added, “At least the second half of this fiscal will remain without any major deals in generative AI for any of India’s IT outsourcers.”

The economic downturn has also impacted Indian IT stocks. Shares of TCS, Wipro, and Tech Mahindra have declined by 2% since September end, while Infosys’ shares have stayed flat. HCL Technologies, on the other hand, has seen growth, attributed to its mega-deal wins and a strong engineering practice.

Amid these challenges, Infosys and HCL Technologies have revised their annual revenue growth projections downwards. Infosys has reduced its growth outlook to 1-2.5% for this fiscal year, while HCL has adjusted its guidance to 4-5% organic growth. Wipro indicated a potential revenue contraction of up to 3.5% for the current quarter.

Analysts also expect IT services expenditure to remain muted in the near term as businesses typically decide their annual budgets only after February. Accenture itself has pointed to slower budget-related decision-making, especially in tech and media companies, setting its q2 target to -2% to 2%. Hence, while gen AI holds promise, its current impact on revenue growth in India’s IT sector seems limited amid the industry’s ongoing struggle with global economic uncertainties and conservative client expenditure. However, it will be interesting to see how earnings from GenAI pan out for Indian IT as the quarter approaches.

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In a strategic move aimed at expanding its presence in Europe and boosting its global digital capabilities, Infosys has unveiled its latest proximity center in Sofia, Bulgaria today. The IT giant also has a commitment to fostering local talent and nurturing innovation as the company aims to hire, attract, and up-skill 500 new employees over the next four years.

The new state-of-the-art center in Sofia will focus on harnessing the potential of emerging digital technologies, including Infosys Cobalt Cloud Solutions, Infosys Topaz AI and Automation, Data and Insights, IoT, 5G, and software engineering. This initiative aligns with Infosys’ strategy to amplify human potential by tapping into the local talent pool.

Bulgaria’s growing reputation as a hotbed for IT development, thanks to its robust IT infrastructure and a wealth of local IT specialists, makes Sofia the ideal location for Infosys to establish its new center. It is expected to provide an inviting environment for businesses from various sectors, including financial services and retail, to collaborate and drive digital transformation initiatives. The center will serve as a hub for ideation, incubation, creation, and scaling of innovative solutions based on emerging technologies.

The center will serve both global and European customers and play a crucial role in supporting their AI and Cloud-led digital transformation journeys. It will further solidify Infosys’ client relationships in Europe, with a particular focus on the manufacturing, retail, and financial services sectors. The center’s functions will encompass the rapid expansion of teams specializing in digital and analytical capabilities, as well as SAP and cloud solutions.

Milena Stoycheva, Minister of Innovation and Growth for the Bulgarian Government, expressed her enthusiasm, “The opening of the new Centre in Sofia is a testament to Infosys’ commitment to fostering talent in our country. With a commitment to employing a 500 strong workforce over the next four years, we’re excited to see the company contribute to our local economy and bring new skills and opportunities for talent working in the technology sector.”

Kosta Cholakov, Chief Executive Officer of DZI Insurance said, “Infosys is one of our strategic partners on our digital transformation journey and we’re thrilled to see Infosys expand its presence to Bulgaria, moving ever closer to its clients. We look forward to continuing collaborating together driving innovation with next generation technologies throughout our organization, underpinned by the wealth of talent and expertise.”

Dinesh Rao, Executive Vice President and Co-Head of Delivery at Infosys added, ““We are dedicated to continuing to grow our footprint in Europe to bring our capabilities, skills and expertise ever closer to our clients. Bulgaria is renowned for its excellent IT talent, and we’re excited to build an exemplary workforce that meets the demands for next generation skills and solutions, with a focus on catalyzing progress of our client’s AI and cloud first transformation. Bringing together the strength of local talent with our industry-leading expertise and innovation we’re confident the new center will serve as a hub of innovation to help shape digital Europe.”

This strategic move is poised to significantly impact the digital transformation landscape in Europe, with Infosys playing a pivotal role in driving innovation and nurturing local talent in Bulgaria.

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In a recent podcast of 3one4 Capital, The Record, Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy sat with T V Mohandas Pai, to discuss India’s economic journey and the vision for a better future for the country. 

Giving an example of the post World War-II scenario in Germany and Japan, he said that the youngsters used to work 70-hours a week to rebuild their countries. “For the first time in the last 300 years, India has received some respect in the eyes of the committee of nations and it is the responsibility of every Indian, but more of the youth, to consolidate that respect.”

“Performance leads to recognition, recognition leads to respect, respect leads to power,” he said and asked the “wonderful youth of the country” to realise this and work 12 hours a day. 

He said that this should be done for the next 20 to 50 years so that “India becomes the number one or the number two nation in the world, in terms of GDP.” He highlighted that even if we become bigger than the US, our per capita would still be much lower.

Highlighting the impact of technology, Murthy said that technology is crucial for a country like India. Citing companies like Amazon and Byju’s, he said, “Thanks to technology, we are already doing better in the country.” He said that the biggest advantage of technology is that it raises the confidence of human beings.

Read: When Narayana Murthy endorsed tech for Indian cricket team

Murthy said, “Even direct benefit transfer is an excellent example… corruption has been eliminated… this is an extraordinary benefit that has accrued to our Indian people.”

“Technology is a great leveller. It doesn’t matter whether you are rich or poor, educated or not, hail from urban or rural India, are powerful or weak, nothing matters as long as you can use the machine. So technology has to be embraced.”

A few months back, in an interview with CNBC, Murthy had said that ChatGPT won’t replace anybody, and is just an addition to human intelligence. “You will use ChatGPT output as a base, and then add your own differentiation.” He said that he is not worried about AI, and it would just take humans from the lower orbit to the upper orbit.

“I believe the human mind is the most powerful imagination machine. There is nothing that can beat the human mind.”

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Silicon Valley’s GPU conversation has now shifted to India with Zoho Corporation looking to acquire some. Last week, Sridhar Vembu, co-founder and CEO of Zoho, confirmed that Zoho is in talks to procure GPUs from NVIDIA. 

On the sidelines of the Zoholics event held in Bengaluru, Vembu briefly mentioned that they are in the process of acquiring GPUs. “Today, for any kind of AI, you need GPUs, and one company that controls all of the GPUs is NVIDIA,” said Vembu.

He also spoke about the short supply of NVIDIA GPUs, and a “wait of six months to get them”. He expects the wait time to ease soon. However, Vembu did not dwell on the details of the type of GPUs that the company is looking to acquire. Looking at NVIDIA’s market, server manufacturers have said to have waited for more than six months for NVIDIA’s H100. 

Furthermore, he even spoke about AMD coming up in a big way and Zoho working on some of that software too. 

India is NVIDIA’s Choice

Selling like hot cakes, NVIDIA’s planned production of 2 million GPUs for 2024 is already sold out. However, NVIDIA has a structured plan for India.

NVIDIA chief Huang Jensen, spoke to AIM last month, where he estimated that India will get about 10s of thousands of GPUs in order to build infrastructure. He even mentioned that India will be one of the first countries to receive NVIDIA’s fastest supercomputers in the world, which are not even in production yet. But by the end of next year, India will have AI supercomputers that will be 50-100 times faster, and will lower the cost of training foundational models. 

With the ongoing geopolitical conflicts, the recent one being the US banning NVIDIA AI chip export to China, India becomes the next-best market for the chip giant. 

Indian Tech Biggies and NVIDIA

With this, Zoho, one of the biggest SaaS players in the world, makes it to the list of Indian big tech companies who have announced their GPU acquisition plans and strategic partnerships with NVIDIA. 

In September, following Huang’s visit to India, Reliance Industries announced its partnership with NVIDIA to develop India’s foundational large language model. The NVIDIA-Reliance Jio Infocomm duo will to serve 450 million Jio customers with AI applications and provide energy-efficient AI resources for Indian researchers and startups.

Furthermore, NVIDIA will also provide GH200 Grace Hopper Superchip and NVIDIA DGX Cloud to Reliance for exceptional performance. 

Adding to the list, two IT majors, TCS and Infosys have also announced their plans to partner with NVIDIA. The TCS-NVIDIA partnership will provide advanced AI capabilities to various organisations, AI researchers and other businesses in India. Furthermore, the companies will work together to build a high-performance AI supercomputer using NVIDIA GH200 Grace Hopper Superchip. 

Following closely behind is Infosys that also announced its partnership with NVIDIA. The partnership involves merging NVIDIA’s AI Enterprise ecosystem, including various components like models, tools, runtimes, and GPU systems, into Infosys’ AI-focused suite called Topaz.  

Zoho Going Big on AI 

Sridhar Vembu at Zoholics press conference in Bengaluru. Source: Zoho

Zoho is already going heavy with AI integration by offering a number of AI-assisted products. The company is also working on a GitHub-like product that will assist programmers. The product-in-the-works will involve parameter training approach along with compiler technology.

Furthermore, earlier this year, Zoho had announced its plan to work on its own large language model, and will be building domain-specific ones. Zoho has even integrated their AI engine Zia with OpenAI. The company has 13 generative AI application extensions that are powered by ChatGPT, including Zoho CRM and Zoho Analytics 

Despite calling AI a bubble, and throwing caution around it, Vembu’s investment in AI is to understand all its capabilities and keep problems to a minimum. With proprietary projects in the pipeline, that obviously requires large compute, Zoho’s talk to acquire GPUs is not surprising. It is likely that more companies will follow suit. 

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Infosys announced today that it was expanding its alliance with Google Cloud to help enterprises build AI-powered experiences using Infosys Topaz offerings and Google Cloud’s generative AI solutions.

Infosys will create the new global Generative AI Labs to develop industry specific AI solutions and platforms, which will help enterprises infuse generative AI into their business processes, the company said in a statement.

The company will also train 20,000 practitioners on Google Cloud’s gen AI solutions, including Vertex AI and Duet AI in Google Workspace, to ensure organisations have the professional services expertise and resources to successfully develop, implement, and manage any type of generative AI project.

This alliance between Infosys and Google Cloud builds on Infosys’ existing data, analytics and AI expertise on Google Cloud. Infosys is actively working with Google Cloud to develop a suite of transformative AI platforms and industry solutions for a range of business scenarios, including consumer AI, autonomous supply chain, autonomous marketing, anti-money laundering and customer services transformation.

A wide range of its existing platforms and solutions are being enhanced with Infosys Topaz and Google Cloud generative AI capabilities. These include Infosys Live Enterprise Application Management Platform, Infosys Applied AI Platform, Infosys Customer Intelligence Platform, Infosys Data Streams, and Infosys Supply Chain AI Platform among others.

The joint capabilities will help create a strong foundation for enterprises towards AI-enabled transformation. For example, Infosys Topaz and Google Cloud generative AI recently helped a leading consumer goods company in successfully launching an AI Twin to assist in real time planning of marketing spend, promotion, and product supply across markets.

“Infosys has been making investments in the AI space for a long time. The combined strength of Google Cloud’s generative AI capabilities and Infosys will help enterprises transform and future-proof their business, built on strong digital, cloud, and next-generation AI capabilities.” said Salil Parekh, CEO, Infosys. 

Infosys AI-powered solutions use insights to improve customer experience, drive sales, and redefine client’s digital business strategy for long term success. The Indian IT giant is on an overdrive mode when it comes to AI. It has been partnering up with global firms like NVIDIA and Microsoft to expand it’s AI capabilities to boost it’s revenue and keep up with the AI-boom. 

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Infosys has unveiled its latest development centre in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, to bolster local employment and promote sustainability. The 83,750-square-foot facility is designed to offer employees more flexible working arrangements.

“This centre will further our approach towards creating hybrid workplaces and also offer new opportunities to the local talent pool,” Nilanjan Roy, CFO at Infosys, said.

However, Infosys had come under fire earlier this year when it had mandated 5 days of work from office for its employees in the US and Canada.

It is poised to become a hub for fostering and developing local talent by offering them exposure to cutting-edge technologies such as Cloud computing, Artificial Intelligence, and Digital solutions—which seems to be the need of the hour with the increasing popularity of Gen AI tools like LLMs.

It paves the way for Infosys to attract and engage in a comprehensive process of upskilling and reskilling local professionals. The Visakhapatnam DC is also expected to accommodate around 1,000 employees and is constructed with an emphasis on energy and water efficiency.

The significance of this endeavour lies in its potential to bridge the gap between regional talent and global opportunities. Infosys enables them to participate in a rapidly evolving digital landscape by training and equipping local talent with expertise in these next-generation technologies. This, in turn, enhances the city’s attractiveness as a potential investment destination for global corporations looking to harness these technological advancements.

Andhra CM Jagan Mohan Reddy at the launch, stated that, “The inauguration of Infosys’ Visakhapatnam DC is a landmark moment in the city’s growth story. We acknowledge the support of Infosys in boosting the city’s IT landscape and developing its overall ecosystem through community building.”

Moreover, Infosys’ commitment to environmental sustainability aligns with global trends toward greener and more responsible business practices.

With the news of the Indian government’s considerations of a 25k GPU cluster, facilities like these would add value to India’s push in the latest tech ecosystem.

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Indian IT and consulting firm, Infosys announced its partnership with Microsoft aimed at accelerating the widespread adoption of generative AI across various industries. The partnership will leverage Infosys Topaz, Azure OpenAI Service, and Azure Cognitive Services to develop cutting-edge solutions that enhance enterprise functions through AI-enabled capabilities.

The primary goal of this collaboration is to democratize data and intelligence within businesses, enabling increased productivity and revenue growth. Generative AI has created new possibilities for AI applications across industries, and Infosys is at the forefront, providing services and solutions in areas such as semantic search, document summarization, contact center transformation, AI-augmented software development, and marketing content creation.

“Through our strategic collaboration with Microsoft, we will continue to lead the generative AI revolution, helping businesses amplify human potential and navigate their next step towards becoming AI-first enterprises,” said Balakrishna D. R. (Bali), executive vice president, Infosys.

Infosys Topaz, in collaboration with Microsoft, will utilize Azure OpenAI Service and Azure Cognitive Services to enhance its capabilities further. This enhancement will enable enterprise customers to seamlessly transition from digital to AI solutions, improving operational efficiency, reducing turnaround time, future-proofing investments, and introducing new business models.

“We’re pleased to expand our collaboration with Infosys to deliver innovative solutions, utilizing Azure OpenAI Service and Azure Cognitive Services, that will help customers develop new business models, and realize new revenue streams,” said Nicole Dezen, chief partner officer, Microsoft Corp. 

Recently, Infosys also announced its partnership with NVIDIA to integrate the NVIDIA AI Enterprise ecosystem, encompassing models, tools, runtimes, and GPU systems into Infosys Topaz  to create offerings that enable businesses worldwide to seamlessly incorporate generative AI into their operations, fostering unprecedented innovation and productivity gains.

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In another groundbreaking development in the Indian tech industry, NVIDIA has announced a partnership with Infosys for revolutionising the world of enterprise AI. The collaboration will see the integration of the NVIDIA AI Enterprise ecosystem, encompassing models, tools, runtimes, and GPU systems into Infosys Topaz, which is a trailblazing AI-centric suite of services, solutions, and platforms built on generative AI technologies. 

This integration will empower Infosys to create offerings that enable businesses worldwide to seamlessly incorporate generative AI into their operations, fostering unprecedented innovation and productivity gains.

In a significant move, Infosys has also unveiled plans to establish the NVIDIA Center of Excellence’, dedicated to training and certifying 50,000 of its employees in NVIDIA AI technology. This initiative will equip Infosys with a formidable workforce capable of providing expert generative AI solutions across diverse industries.

Infosys has fully embraced the NVIDIA generative AI platform, leveraging both hardware and enterprise-grade software to drive innovation across its operations and deliver generative AI applications that enhance business operations, sales, and marketing. 

With access to NVIDIA AI Enterprise frameworks, pretrained models, and toolkits, Infosys has already rolled out multiple AI-first solutions across various industries:

Retail Transformation: By integrating the Infosys Video Analytics platform with NVIDIA Metropolis, Infosys is going to revolutionise the retail industry. This partnership enables frictionless shopping experiences, improved merchandising, enhanced planogram compliance, reduced shrinkage, real-time inventory monitoring, health and safety compliance checks, and more. It also has applications in logistics, manufacturing, and utilities.

Language Models for Enterprises: Through the pairing of Infosys Generative AI Labs with the NVIDIA NeMo framework, organisations can now fine-tune and expedite the deployment of large language models tailored to meet various enterprise needs. This collaboration also incorporates NVIDIA NeMo Guardrails to enhance the Responsible AI Toolkit, ensuring protection against potential risks associated with generative AI.

Next-Generation Contact Centers: Using Infosys Cortex with NVIDIA Riva speech and translation AI, is aiming to craft AI-driven contact centre solutions. These solutions offer language-neutral features for seamless multilingual support, real-time customer intent and sentiment analysis, ultimately boosting customer satisfaction and brand loyalty.

The partnership extends beyond these applications, encompassing digitalization solutions for 3D workflows, design collaboration, digital twins, world simulation, and other innovative use cases. Furthermore, Infosys and NVIDIA are collaborating on AI-powered solutions in emerging domains such as 5G, cybersecurity, and energy transition.

Speaking about the partnership, Nandan Nilekani, co-founder and chairman of Infosys, stated, “Infosys is transforming into an AI-first company to better provide AI-based services to our clients worldwide. Our clients are also looking at complex AI use cases that can drive significant business value across their entire value chain. Infosys Topaz offerings and solutions are complementary to NVIDIA’s core stack. By combining our strengths and training 50,000 of our workforce on NVIDIA AI technology, we are creating end-to-end industry-leading AI solutions that will help enterprises on their journey to become AI-first.”

Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA, emphasised the impact of generative AI on enterprise productivity, saying, “Generative AI will drive the next wave of enterprise productivity gains. The NVIDIA AI Enterprise ecosystem is ramping quickly to provide the platform for generative AI. Together, NVIDIA and Infosys will create an expert workforce to help businesses use this platform to build custom applications and solutions.”

Recently, during his visit to India, Huang also announced its partnership with Reliance and Tata for building generative AI infrastructure and capabilities within the country.

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The US is restricting NVIDIA from selling its advanced AI hardware to China and it will heavily impact the Santa Clara-headquartered company’s revenue since China is one of their most important markets. 

China is a key market for Nvidia, so much so that the revenue from China and Hong Kong accounted for 22% of the company’s revenue in 2022, according to its financial statements.

“Over the long term, restrictions prohibiting the sale of our data centre GPUs to China, if implemented, would result in a permanent loss of opportunities for the US industry to compete and lead in one of the world’s largest markets and impact on our future business and financial results,” said Colette Kress, NVIDIA’s chief financial officer during an investment conference in June this year.

Furthermore, US officials plan to tighten these export curbs. The new move is aimed at Nvidia’s A800 chip, which it created to bypass the regulations and in order to continue to sell to China.

“We are aware of reports that the US Department of Commerce is considering further controls that may restrict exports of our A800 and H800 products to China,” Kress said recently at an investment conference.

Exploring New Frontiers

While the business with China has become tough because of geopolitical reasons, Jensen is searching for new markets to re-route the supply. And India is the next big market after China. 

In 2020, India’s AI market was worth $3 billion, constituting about 1% of the global market, according to IDC. However, AI spending in India is projected to grow significantly, reaching $11.78 billion by 2025 and contributing $1 trillion to the country’s economy by 2035.

A joint study by Microsoft and IAMAI found that India’s AI market is set to grow by 20% in the next five years, second only to China globally. 

Last week, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang visited India and made some big announcements. The company partnered with major Indian companies such as Tata, Reliance and Infosys. Under this partnership, NVIDIA will deliver AI computing infrastructure and platforms to these companies for developing AI solutions.

The partnerships also underlined the demand and the willingness on these companies’ part to integrate AI and expand on their ability to build and deploy AI models. 

India, though a small AI market, contributes 16% of global AI talent, ranking among the top three talent producers worldwide, surpassing its own demand. With a legacy of exporting tech talent globally, India produces more talent than it consumes.

“I would like to accelerate the building of AI infrastructure here in India. You have your own data, lots and lots of data. You also have very diverse languages. You have the great talent of computer scientists,” said Huang during the press meet. 

What the Partnerships Entail

The partnership ranges from creating LLMs in local Indian languages to building GPU cloud infrastructures and upskilling employees on a large scale for the AI revolution that’s on the horizon.

NVIDIA, in partnership with Reliance Industries, aims to develop India’s foundational LLM trained on the nation’s diverse languages, tailored for generative AI applications. The project will create AI infrastructure surpassing India’s fastest supercomputer, with access to NVIDIA’s GH200 Grace Hopper Superchip and DGX Cloud for high performance. This initiative will enable Reliance Jio Infocomm to develop AI applications for its 450 million customers and provide energy-efficient AI resources for Indian scientists and startups, expanding to 2,000 MW data centres.

“As India advances from a country of data proliferation to creating technology infrastructure for widespread and accelerated growth, computing and technology super centres like the one we envisage with NVIDIA will provide the catalytic growth just like Jio did to our nation’s digital march,” Reliance chairman, Mukesh Ambani said. 

Meanwhile, Infosys is poised to collaborate with NVIDIA, leveraging its infrastructure and expertise to develop AI models and applications. NVIDIA’s CEO Jensen Huang discussed plans to reskill over 300,000 employees in AI, aligning with NVIDIA’s recent partnerships with Reliance and Tata to build significant AI infrastructure in India. These endeavours, utilising NVIDIA’s GH200 Grace Hopper Superchip and DGX Cloud, will empower TCS to innovate and enhance the skills of its extensive workforce of over 600,000 employees.

In the rapidly evolving global AI landscape, these partnerships signify India’s potential to become a major player. 

OpenAI’s five-year journey is a testament to AI’s growth, and India, with plans to acquire tens of thousands of GPUs and achieve AI supercomputers 50 to 100 times faster by the next year, is poised to achieve similar success in a shorter timeframe.

“We are going to bring out the fastest computers in the world. These computers are not even in production [so far]. India will be one of the first countries in the world [to get them],” Jensen said. He added that by the end of 2024, India will have AI supercomputers that are an order of magnitude faster (i.e. 50 to 100 times faster), lowering the cost of foundational model training.

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Indian IT company Infosys is likely to partner with NVIDIA to use its infrastructure and capabilities to build AI models and applications, alongside reskilling 3 lakh+ employees in AI, hinted NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang in a recent interaction with AIM.

This development comes on the heels of NVIDIA’s recently announced partnerships with Reliance and Tata where both of the Indian tech giants will be working with NVIDIA to build one of the largest AI infrastructure in India using NVIDIA’s GH200 Grace Hopper Superchip and NVIDIA DGX Cloud which is an AI supercomputing service in the cloud. 

Like Infosys, TCS had previously made an announcement about its plans to enhance the skills of its 600,000+ employees through its partnership with NVIDIA.

On his recent visit to India Huang met with influential tech leaders in India, including Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani, startup innovators, AI advocates, and key players in India’s digital infrastructure. He expressed his excitement, saying that India is on the verge of becoming a major player in the global AI field.

Huang emphasized India’s strength in information technology and the potential for AI to accelerate the development of the nation’s IT industry. “IT is one of your natural resources. You produce it at an incredible scale. You’re incredibly good at it. You export it all over the world,” Huang said.

Earlier this year Infosys launched Topaz, an AI-focused suite with 12,000 use cases, enabling industry-specific solutions in intelligent automation, AI-driven customer service, and enhanced security. Topaz helps businesses adopt open-source LLMs to build narrow transformers, solving specific enterprise challenges and driving growth. Infosys Chief Executive Officer Salil Parekh had mentioned that there are 50 client projects where the company is using generative AI.

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After launching the Generative AI Studio under its amplifAI0->∞ suite of AI offerings and solutions, Tech Mahindra chief executive and managing director CP Gurnani recently took to X to share that it is the first major Indian IT company to be working on their proprietary large language model called Project Indus. 

The open-source large language model aims to speak over 40 Indic languages in the first phase, including Kinnauri, Kangri, Chambeli, Garhwali, Kumaoni, Jaunsari and more. 

The “​​civilisational” initiative will be carried out by the Makers Lab of Tech Mahindra to develop India’s foundational model for various Indian languages, starting with Hindi. The project collects Hindi dialect speech data to train a language model using NLP algorithms. Contributors can anonymously submit short to extended speech samples with the option to delete recorded data. 

According to the official website, mobile numbers are optionally collected for reference and gamification purposes, with encryption and a retention period of up to seven years. No personal information will be shared with third parties. 

However, it is not yet clear whether Makers Lab will build the model from scratch or base it on top of any existing LLMs like GPT-4 or Llama 2 like Stanford’s Alpaca and Vicuna-13B.

Unpacking the Gen AI Vows of Indian IT

When it comes to generative AI, all other Indian IT giants have also poured sufficient funds. However, their excitement in channelling the full potential of generative AI has led to no real use cases. 

The Indian IT giants are forming partnerships to advance generative AI adoption. In an earlier interaction with AIM, Wipro CTO Subha Tatavarti said that the company has been working around generative AI for the past two years. Wipro teamed up with IIT Delhi to establish a Center of Excellence (CoE) as part of their USD 1 billion AI-driven innovation initiative in the Wipro ai360 ecosystem. They aim to combine Google Cloud’s generative AI with Wipro’s AI IP, business accelerators, and industry solutions. 

Meanwhile, HCL partnered with Microsoft and AWS to enhance their generative AI efforts, while TCS is collaborating with Google Cloud to utilise foundational models like Vertex AI and generative AI Application Builder. Infosys follows an “AI First” strategy, focusing on specialised AI models from open-source LLMs, using them to accelerate clients’ AI initiatives through their Topaz framework, which encompasses generative AI-based services, solutions, and platforms.

No Moat, Only Fluff Talk

This is not the first time that we have seen ITs jumping onto the bandwagon of something new, something that is trending in the tech ecosystem. When Meta introduced Metaverse with much fanfare, we saw a similar reaction. 

TCS started the trend, followed by Tech Mahindra and Infosys, all announcing their metaverse-related products and services in February of 2022. As a part of the metaverse programme, TCS’ “themaTiCS” suite targets improving remote work experiences where only 25% of employees are in the office at any time. Following the lead, Infosys introduced the Metaverse Foundry similar to Topaz, offering ready-to-use templates and is said to have found 100 use cases for enterprises to embrace metaverse offerings spanning XR consulting, blockchain consulting, digital twin and more. Tech Mahindra also introduced the TechMVerse, leveraging its 5G capabilities to deliver immersive experiences. 

However, when Meta pulled the plug on their Metaverse dream, Indian ITs seemed to have lost interest too. 

This time, Indic Languages are coming back to riding the generative AI wave, building indigenous LLMs in India is a huge growth opportunity considering that it is home to 122 major languages and 1599 other languages, along with 22 official languages, as per Census 2001. 

At present, 58.8% of the content is in English, followed by Russian, Spanish and French. Forget about native languages like Garhwali or Kumaoni, even Hindi does not make it to the top ten highlighting a significant shortage of local language content. 

Project Bhashini, was introduced in collaboration with Microsoft. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman also introduced the National Language Translation Mission (NLTM) in the 2021-22 budget.

Project Indus is an important initiative in this direction. Gurnani urged people from different vocabularies to contribute to making this project successful as an LLM is only as good as the data it is trained on. And Tech Mahindra is the only company to work on its promises.

Choosing AI Upskilling Over Model Building

When it comes to building its own LLMs, India is taking a different approach, focusing on the upskilling of their employees. This can be attributed to the fact that historically, technology adoptions have increased work volume, requiring more expertise and hands.

All the heads of these companies like K Krithivasan (TCS), Salil Parekh (Infosys) and C Vyakumar (HCL) have highlighted generative AI as the quarter one’s focal point of this year, with clients exploring its potential for enhancing productivity, content creation, and customer service. 

However, while generative AI is seeing a  strong interest, clients cutting back on IT spending is a concern for HCL and Infosys, impacting revenue growth forecasts, as per a report by The Register. Despite the short-term hype, executives believe AI will bring meaningful long-term benefits, although measuring its effectiveness remains challenging.

Tech Mahindra, Infosys, TCS, HCL and Wipro have expanded their partnerships with major tech players like AWS, Google and Microsoft partnerships to upskill employees in generative AI. Traditionally, the huge talent pool of India has been seen as beneficial for a quick adopter of technology and not building inhouse. And now with the upskilling, the process will only get faster and smoother.

Read more: Wipro’s Tryst With Generative AI Began Way Before ChatGPT

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The beginning of 2023 was a stressful time for employees at the Silicon Valley. Salesforce, Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, Spotify, Zoom and others collectively fired approximately 106,950 employees, making it worse than the combined job losses in November and December 2022 (50,573 workers and 40,368 employees, respectively). It seems like the worst is over. The tech employees can now finally take a sigh of relief since job cuts have hit a 7 month low. 

In the US, mass layoffs have declined 90% post June compared to January 2023. Similar is the case for the Indian economy as per ET report. The firing in the tech sector is further expected to cool down, according to an analysis citing proprietary data. 

The companies seem to be moving to a non-conventional strategy. Instead of following the usual firing-hiring cycle, the tech firms have chosen to retain their existing employees and upskill their engineering skills. 

Mellowed drama

The decline in letting go of employees is not unusual, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas Senior Vice President Andrew Challenger, who noted June is typically the slowest month for major reductions. 

The economic downturn can be blamed upon the glut of staffing created during the COVID-19 pandemic. Currently, a softened demand of tech workforce impends the market to cut costs. Furthermore, Nitin Bhatt, partner & technology sector leader at EY believes that the hiring volumes may not see the same levels as FY21 or FY22. Hiring, where it happens, will be mostly of the replacement variety or for niche skills. “Caution and scrutiny around hiring will continue in the tech sector in the second half of the year,” he stated.

“Should the uncertainty around pipeline conversion, project cancellations, ramp-downs and slower ramp-ups for awarded projects continue, one can expect net hiring in H2 to be negative for the industry,” Bhatt added.

Moving forward 

Tech firms which decided to let go of its employees aren’t yet ramping up hiring, despite requiring workers with special AI skills. On the contrary, companies have introduced reskilling and upskilling programmes for its workforce due to the surge in interest for AI across industries. 

For instance, even though Indian software leader Infosys has been stern about not letting go of its employees, the market witnessed a 46% fall in the company’s net hiring during the fiscal year 2023. Furthermore, the IT giant has launched a comprehensive and free AI certification training programme through Infosys Springboard to empower individuals with the necessary skills to succeed in the job market. 

The company also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Skillsoft, a virtual education platform to revamp education about technology.  The content for the program ranges from basic to advanced level courses covering digital transformation, AI and ML, data science, cloud, cybersecurity, and effective communication and presentation. 

Since the generative AI wave has spread like wildfire, companies have been betting big on the emerging technology. Fintech biz Capital One cut over 1100 roles in its technology segment earlier in January. The company stated, it’s hiring AI and ML engineers, but it’s also upskilling current engineers. Speaking to the Washington Post, Abhijit Bose, a senior vice president, said the company has already trained over 100 engineers through its six-month program. 

Similarly, Salesforce made it to the news for eliminating 10% of its workforce which is 8000 employees. Fast forward to June, the company has announced courses covering AI basics, generative AI, the fundamentals of natural language processing, and more to help companies upskill their respective employees with generative AI opportunities. 

As 2023 progresses, the trajectory of layoffs appears to be stabilizing, and the industry is shifting its focus towards upskilling talent rather than cutting it loose. With the industry giants leading the way in upskilling their employees’ expertise in AI, it is likely that the sector will emerge with a workforce better equipped to thrive in the generative AI landscape.

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Indian IT giant Infosys  today unveiled its sonic brand identity, the auditory equivalent of its blue visual identity and logo.The unique melody, the sonic landscape will be integrated across Infosys’ many platforms used by employees, and across brand assets, ranging from videos to signature events that the company’s clients and the broader community engage with.

Sumit Virmani, EVP and Global Chief Marketing Officer at Infosys, highlighted, “In a digital era where brand interactions largely unfold across virtual spaces, our sonic brand identity becomes an integral reinforcement of our distinct brand character. Beyond this, it’s a conduit for nurturing a profound emotional connection with Infosys, kindling the promise of opportunity creation that underpins our brand’s essence. We envision the sound of Infosys becoming synonymous with the sound of opportunity across diverse markets.”

The company said it cordially invites all stakeholders to embark on a journey to unlock opportunities by engaging with their sonic brand on the dedicated platform. “The resonant response from the audience will be the catalyst for catalyzing transformative digital learning experiences for underprivileged students and aspiring job seekers across India”, the company added. 

You can listen to the sonic signature here.   

Interestingly, Infosys is not the first Indian company to use sonic identity. Last year HCLTech partnered with Plimsoll to create their unique Sonic Branding. Plimsoll crafted a Sonic Signature, complete with Beam Behavior Effects and a captivating Hero Theme. The distinct sonic identity resonates across HCLTech’s prominent marketing campaigns.

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Infosys, the second-largest IT services company in India, announced its financial results for the first quarter. The company reported a notable 11% increase in net profit, amounting to ₹5,945 crore, compared to ₹5,360 crore during the same period last year. However, Infosys had to lower its FY24 revenue guidance from 4-7% to a much lower range of 1-3.5% due to challenges in the demand environment.

In terms of regional revenue growth during the June quarter, Infosys experienced a positive 10.9% year-on-year growth in Europe and a 9.3% growth in India. However, revenue growth in North America was only at 2.3% YoY, while the ‘rest of the world’ segment faced a decline of 4.5% YoY. The company added 99 new clients during Q1FY24, reaching 1,883 active clients as of June 30, 2023.

Among the verticals, the financial services and communication segments reported a 4.7% and 6.1% YoY drop in revenue, respectively. In contrast, the manufacturing segment showed a healthy growth of 21.3% YoY, while the life sciences segment rose significantly by 14.9% YoY. The ‘others’ segment revenue also increased by 28% YoY. However, the retail and hi-tech segments saw relatively sluggish growth in Q1FY24.

Infosys’ CEO and MD, Salil Parekh, expressed satisfaction with the company’s solid Q1 performance, highlighting the 4.2% growth and the success of large deals worth $2.3 billion, which set a strong foundation for future growth. Additionally, he mentioned the development of generative AI tools based on an open-source model, with 40,000 employees trained in these areas.

“Our generative AI capabilities are expanding well, with 80 active client projects. Topaz, our comprehensive AI offering, is resonating well with clients. We see this being transformative for clients and enhancing our overall service portfolio” said Salil Parekh, CEO and MD. 

“We have expanded the margin improvement program with a holistic set of actions for the short, medium and long-term, working on five key areas, supported by our leadership team”, he added.

Effects on the Market

However, the sharp downward revision of FY24 revenue guidance led to a significant drop in Infosys’ ADRs in the pre-market session on the NYSE, falling nearly 9%.

The company’s management aims to improve its operating margin in the future. The attrition rate improved to 17.3%, but the headcount of employees declined compared to the previous quarter.

During the opening deals today, the company’s stock experienced a significant decline of 9%, reaching Rs 1,311.60 on the BSE.

Analysts have mixed opinions on Infosys’ stock, with some expressing concern over the steep cut in the FY24 revenue outlook. Nevertheless, the company’s Q1FY24 revenue growth is expected to be positive, with moderate improvement in upper-end sales growth for 2023-24.

For instance, Motilal Oswal Securities stated in its earnings review that while the guidance cut is concerning and could have a negative impact on the share price in the short term (partly due to the 11% gain in the last month), they believe the miss is more related to perception rather than operational issues, as the earlier guidance was overly optimistic given the current business environment.

Conclusively, Infosys reported an increase in net profit for Q1FY24, but due to challenges in the demand environment, the company lowered its revenue guidance for FY24. Despite this, the company secured significant deals and expressed optimism about its generative AI capabilities. The ADRs experienced a sharp decline in response to the revised guidance. The management aims to enhance the operating margin, and analysts have varying opinions on the company’s stock performance.

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India’s second-largest software services exporter Infosys has informed the stock exchanges that it has entered into a new agreement with an undisclosed established client to provide AI and automation services over a period of five years. The partnership has an estimated target spend of $2 billion. The announcement pushed up the company’s stock price up by 3.6% on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). 

“Infosys has entered into framework agreement with one of its existing strategic clients to provide AI and automation led development, modernisation and maintenance services. The total client target spend over 5 years is estimated at USD 2 billion,” the company said in an exchange filing on Monday. The news comes three days before July 20 when Infosys is scheduled to release the results of its June quarter (Q1FY24).

In accordance with the company’s exchange filing, the agreement includes the advancement, modernization, and upkeep of AI and automation-related services. Notably, the IT giant had recently unveiled a wide-ranging and cost-free AI certification training initiative through Infosys Springboard. This program aims to equip individuals with skills required to thrive in the future job landscape.

Infosys’ AI move underscores the growing trend of Indian IT companies increasing their investments in the field of AI. Long before OpenAI’s ChatGPT hit the scene, Tech Mahindra was already working with generative AI. Notably, the IT behemoth’s chief executive, CP Gurnani, lauded the Storicool platform—an auto content creation tool that proved ahead of its time.

In line with this trajectory, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) made headlines with its own foray into generative AI capabilities, joining forces with Google Cloud. Furthermore, Wipro, too, has entered a partnership with Google Cloud to harness the power of its generative AI tools, integrating them with their in-house AI models, business accelerators, and pre-built industry solutions, as per the company’s announcement. This signifies a competitive shift within the Indian IT landscape.

Read more: How Indian IT Giants are Bringing GenAI to Their Clients

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