The Day 3 at World Economic Forum at Davos revolved around India Inc.’s mood around the upcoming budget, quarter expectation, India’s growth at global platforms, leveraging AI, policy reforms at play, among others.
From Sunil Bharti Mittal to K Krithivasan, moneycontrol spoke with some of the top corporate voices. Here's a quick rundown of the top highlights:
Rajesh Kumar Singh, Secretary, DPIIT
Rajesh Kumar Singh, DPIIT Secretary
On incentive scheme for Tesla
"This is still at a negotiation stage. And during the course of sensitive negotiations like this, we really can't get ahead of ourselves and start talking about what the final formula will be. As I always say about this issue, whatever incentive mechanisms are put in place by the government will be applicable for all players and not only for any particular company."
Leveraging AI in digital public infrastructure
"India's digital public infrastructure enables it to leverage huge volumes of data to train language models and create good use cases for the country. We hope that this is going to happen. The indication I have is that the Indian industry's willingness to adopt AI is perhaps one of the foremost in the world. We certainly expect the trend towards AI to be a net positive for the Indian economy and for the manufacturing sector in particular."
Reverse flip trend
"Offshoring of some of our financial transactions through GIFT City is going to help startups to stay in India and raise funds. In addition, in the future, you will have more relaxed listing norms for companies. And as a result, many of these startups in general with a promising revenue stream and a promising idea should be able to raise funds through IPOs as well in the not too distant future."
Sunil Mittal, Chairman, Bharti Enterprise
Sunil Mittal, Chairperson, Bharti Enterprise
On fair share demand/net neutrality
"We are pursuing the fair share demand aggressively. There are some people who are mixed up. Nobody's saying fair share at the cost of net neutrality. Net Neutrality is a given on top of their fair share. That's got nothing to do with net neutrality. The large four, five big consumers of guzzlers of the network capacity, need to step up and contribute towards India's (network) burden.”
On Vodafone saga
"So a lot of investment is required, and they need to shore up their capital base. They need to get some investors, they need to get some more debt. You need serious capital to be in this business. And that, sadly, has not been the case for the last two or three years... I wish them well, I've always said that with India's size of the market, the country should have three operators. But thankfully, BSNL is coming up!."
Third term for BJP-led NDA
“India's upcoming (election) is attracting everybody's attention. Although, it is pretty much kind of a deal where everybody recognises where this election is likely to go. As you can see, we don't have to sell India any more. People are drawing, getting attracted to us, people are wanting to talk about business in India: " How should we invest? Where should we invest? What all we need to do" And that gives you a very clear signal where people's minds are in terms of the upcoming elections."
Attending Ram Mandir ceremony
"I plan to be there (at consecration ceremony), it has been aspiration of India to see the completion of the temple. I think Ram mandir also represents the goodness of India.. the Ram Rajya which really is not necessary (sic) to religion itself. But everything that can be captured in a good way for the country for the people who live there, and for everyone. I think that's what that particular symbol represents."
Neeraj Kanwar, MD, Apollo Tyres
Neeraj Kanwar, MD, Apollo Tyres
Using AI in operations
“We are focusing on efficiency and internal consolidation using AI and ML…We have got two innovation hubs where data scientists are sitting, one in London and one in Hyderabad, where we are analyzing machines and all the plants and equipment, all the data is now real-time in cloud.”
Optimistic Q4
"People have been cautious in Q3 but demand is bouncing back as consumers buying pattern is coming up. This is the sign we are seeing from OEMs like Tata and Leyland."
EV plans
“EV tyres is not new, our R&D has been working on this. EV tyre requirement involves zero noise innovation and we need much more torque and rolling resistance, we are working our R&D on this for the past 4-5 years."
K Krithivasan, CEO & MD, TCS
K Krithivasan, CEO & MD, Tata Consultancy Services
On budget expectation
"Budgets are no longer sacrosanct as customers are ready to re-calibrate depending on opportunities. I don't have a sense for the budget, but I would think it's probably more or less the same as last year."
Better expectation for Q4
"The general mood is still cautiously optimistic. We are expecting Q4 to be better than Q3. I don't know whether you can call it bottomed-out, but it should be better. Overall, we are more optimistic about FY25 compared to FY24.”
Catching on the Gen AI race
“I and not worried that TCS is behind in this (Gen AI). We are heavily invested and training our people.”
Neal Mohan, CEO, Youtube
Neal Mohan, CEO, Youtube
AI to tackle deepfakes
YouTube will be incredibly vigilant in combating misinformation and deepfakes. The advent of this (generative AI) technology will lead to amazing things but will also be a tool that will be in the hands of bad actors. Fundamentally, what this generative AI tool can do is it can make the cost of producing that type of content to effectively zero.”
Read: Davos 2024: YouTube will be 'incredibly vigilant' in combating deepfakes, says Neal Mohan
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