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In today’s newsletter:

• Wipro's Rishad Premji weighs in on 90-hour workweek debate
• Infosys CEO predicts tech spending boom
• Domestic industry eyes pie of $500 Bn Stargate project

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The debate on long work hours has been heating up in India Inc., with some tech titans advocating for grueling 70-90 hour weeks. 

• But Wipro's Executive Chairman, Rishad Premji, is taking a different stance

“The balance you may want is being able to do something at work and just sort of cool off your mind and not sort of be there only for 10/20/30 or 70 hours, whatever that may be. So, I'm a huge believer in work-life balance,” Premji told us in Davos.

The Chairman of India’s fourth-largest IT services company believes that the need to recharge and show up well for work should not be underestimated, which sits at odds with one of his company’s larger rivals’ founders.

Premji isn't just talking the talk. Wipro recently rebranded "sick leaves" as "wellness days," a move Premji said he is proud of.

“Giving people the time to rest and to recover and to energize, I think is going to be important,” Premji said.

Dig deeper

More highlights from our WEF Davos coverage:

• Even as the world braces for renewed tariff war and protectionism under the new Trump administration, countries like India will likely benefit owing to its neutral stance and democratic government, said economist and former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan. “You want to try and produce in more friendly countries, that won't turn into countries on the other side. India has an advantage, it is more neutral and slanted towards the democracies. It is a big player,” Rajan said. Dig deeper

• The bulk of the Indian workforce needs to be reskilled to prepare for new technologies, Union minister of state for skill development and entrepreneurship Jayant Chaudhary has said, calling on the private sector to invest in upskilling their employees. “A large part of the Indian workforce needs to reskill and re-tool themselves for the new technology that is coming. And that re-tooling can only happen if the industry also invests in their own workforce,” Chaudhary said. Go deeper
  
  
• Tech Mahindra’s chief executive officer and managing director Mohit Joshi has said the IT major’s clients in the US are more bullish on the future than before, as they are hopeful of a conducive regulatory environment under the Trump administration. Joshi said though people across the board are now talking about new programmes and pieces of work and there is optimism, it is too early to declare this a trend. Go deeper
  
  
• Higher capital expenditure by the union government, deregulation and enhancing the ease of doing business along with a lower personal income tax rate for the middle class will kickstart the economic growth, said audit firm EY India’s chairman and managing partner Rajiv Memani. “If we focus on capex, looking at increasing consumption, easing up things, deregulating a bit more, trying to see how we create energy through disinvestments or even through the capital markets and if that can be done with pace, I think that is something that will really help,” said Memani. More on that here

• The RP-Sanjiv Goenka (RPSG) Group is gearing up for its highest-ever investments across key sectors over the next three years, with significant capital deployed across green energy and artificial intelligence (AI) vice-chairman Shashwat Goenka said. “2025 will be a year of expansion and growth across all our businesses, with a significant focus on the energy sector. These 5 GW are already at various stages of execution,” Goenka said. Dig deeper
  
  
• Nigel Vaz, chief executive offer (CEO), Publicis Sapient, a digital consulting company, is betting big on India leading in the artificial intelligence space (AI). "I think India's done a phenomenal job in demonstrating the public-private partnership and how digital can bring so many people into the fold, whether it's UPI and payment gateways or whether it's national identity," he said. Find out more
  
  
• The Maharashtra government has bagged an investment of around $8.3 billion from hyperscaler major Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) larger $12.7 billion investment plan to develop cloud infrastructure in India by 2030. A memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed in Davos to formalise the plan. The investment is expected to contribute $15.3 billion to India’s GDP and support more than 81,300 full-time jobs annually in the local data centre supply chain by 2030, AWS said. Meanwhile, Reliance Industries signed a MoU with the Maharashtra government to invest Rs 3.05 lakh crore in the state across diverse sectors including new energy, retail, hospitality, and high-tech manufacturing. This is expected to create 3 lakh employment opportunities in the state.
  
  
• As India gears up for the Union Budget, RPG Enterprises’ Vice Chairman Anant Goenka, has called for measures to simplify taxes and boost consumption. Goenka emphasised that such reforms could enhance capacity utilisation, attract private investment, and further strengthen India’s economic momentum. Find out more

 Prefer video? Check out our daily Davos bulletin that brings you the top highlights from Day 4 of the World Economic Forum.

The private sector which keeps most of India employed is seeing signs of improvement.

Infosys CEO Salil Parekh told us that large companies are expected to ramp up technology investments, paving the way for large digital programmes.

• Parekh said he is optimistic about the way the demand environment is shaping up in the US
  
  
• Business will grow faster and become more favourable for business, going forward, he said

This comes at a time when the IT sector is bracing for a turnaround after multi-decadal low revenue growth and hiring rates in the past two-odd years.

Parekh said Europe is focused on improving competitiveness, while Nordic countries and Spain are already doing well.

• Infosys saw improvement in the North American market in Q2, and Europe also made a comeback in Q3

While this has been the case for larger rival Tata Consultancy Services, too, some others such as Wipro haven’t seen much growth in Europe.

Parekh said Infosys is also seeing a shift in the nature of IT deals.

• While cost take-out deals remain dominant, discretionary spending in financial services and retail is beginning to return, particularly in the US and Europe

Experts told us that they have seen the healthiest recovery for the IT services sector in about 18 months after macroeconomic issues hit the sector.

Dig deeper

A mere fortnight ago, Indian tech leaders were worried about the Biden administration’s AI export restrictions. 

• But now, the spotlight has shifted, and excitement is building!

The domestic industry is eyeing a pie of the $500 billion Stargate Project aimed at building physical and virtual AI infrastructure. 

• Stargate will operate as a new company 

• Its partners include Nvidia, Arm, Microsoft, SoftBank, Oracle and OpenAI

The project will initially see $100 billion funding from major tech players and is expected to generate 100,000 new jobs in the US.

Indian Electronics and Semiconductors Association president Ashok Chandak sees this as a major opportunity for Indian professionals, as the companies associated with Stargate already have a presence in India.

"Learning from Stargate, India can conceptualise and implement its large-scale initiatives," he said. 

The ICEA also requested the government to deepen its ties with the US by leveraging existing collaborative efforts.

Meanwhile, the United States-India Business Council urged the new Trump administration to collaborate more, with India, on AI research and development.

• The trade body also urged the government to sign a new “digital trade agreement” with India

P.S.: The Stargate project has also sparked a war of words among the most influential figures in the tech world. Keep scrolling for more deets!

• A US lawsuit alleges LinkedIn Premium users' private messages were shared with other companies to train their AI models.
  
  
• Approximately 78% of Indian businesses plan to ramp up AI investment to ready operations for a year of rapid change in 2025, according to an Accenture report.

The ongoing feud between Elon Musk and Sam Altman, who co-founded OpenAI with Musk, just got even more intense. 

The latest drama unfolded over Donald Trump’s $500 billion Stargate AI initiative, where Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and Satya Nadella are now locked in a war of words.

• It all started when Musk, always one to stir the pot, accused Altman and OpenAI of not having the funds to back the project

Altman’s response: “Wrong, as you surely know.” And from there, the gloves were off. 

Musk, in true Musk fashion, shared a photo of a crack pipe, suggesting it was OpenAI’s "research tool" for determining the $500 billion figure (which was later deleted).

• Enter Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, who, when asked about Musk’s jab, casually dropped that Microsoft has its $80 billion ready to build out Azure

Musk couldn’t help but reply, “Satya definitely does have the money,” before Nadella shot back, "And all this money is not about hyping AI, but is about building useful things for the real world!"

Find out more

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