Davos 2024: IBM CEO Arvind Krishna says India will be at forefront of AI deployment, lauds govt’s initiatives

Arvind Krishna, CEO, IBM

IBM Chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna said artificial intelligence (AI) will be equal or even bigger than the steam engine revolution and India is going be to at the forefront of AI deployment.

He was speaking at a Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) event on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos on January 17.

Krishna added that India’s growth in AI deployment will be driven by the scale of data sets the country has and the government’s initiatives in AI, including the establishment of AI centers of excellence.

“India will be at the forefront of AI deployment. Given the scale of India’s data sets, it will be remarkably useful. I have to applaud the Indian government’s in initiatives in AI, and building AI centres of excellence,” he said.

He added, “AI is going to be a global force for good. We believe it is equal or bigger than steam engine revolution. We are a firm believer that India will be massive beneficiary of AI. Workforce that is going to deploy AI will come from India.”

According to Krishna, for this to happen, skilling and digital infrastructure will play a huge role. “Using digital infrastructure you can deliver skilling in small cities,” he said.

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Rightly so, nearly 80 percent of IBM’s India R&D workforce is involved in researching and building IBM’s AI capabilities, contributing significantly to its flagship AI and data platform, Watson X.

IBM continues to actively hire freshers in India to training them in AI-focussed skills before deploying.

Last month, in an exclusive interview with Moneycontrol, IBM’s Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer, Nickle LaMoreaux, said, “Campus hiring is going to primarily focus around technical talent—engineering talent that we can then train in AI products. And I think that’s how we’re going to think about this. And the experienced professionals that we’ll be bringing in will be because of their domain and industry expertise.”

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Almost 50 percent of IBM’s current global workforce is AI trained and India’s number is a little higher, as the country comprises of a lot of software talent building the AI product, LaMoreaux had said.