Davos 2024: Key highlights, including Andrew Ng, Sriharsha Majety & other top newsmakers

On Day 1 of WEF, Moneycontrol brought you top global voices across diverse industries

From artificial intelligence pioneer Andrew Ng to Swiggy co-founder Sriharsha Majety and Hero MotoCorp CEO Niranjan Gupta, Moneycontrol brought you insights from some of the top tech and corporate voices on the first day of the World Economic Forum at Davos.

They spoke about a range of topics, including generative AI and its impact across various industries, the outlook of the EV market industry and India's place in the global landscape, among others. Here's a quick rundown of the top highlights:

Andrew Ng, the founder and CEO of Landing AI and co-founder of Coursera (left) and Jeff Maggioncalda (right), the current chief executive officer of Coursera

"There will be some huge winners building LLMs, maybe some regional winners as well. But that space is hyper competitive. And there are so many more opportunities in applications of AI to healthcare, financial services. IT consulting. These have huge opportunities that relatively very few people are working on."

"When there's a major tech disruption, it gives every nation a shot at playing an even bigger role than it has before. India has always had a very strong IT software ecosystem. And I think that India is actually in a very good position to quickly embrace the new skills in tech, but also more broadly. And then to play a huge role in the generative AI world."

"I do see across many governments around the world that there's a risk of over regulation. There's a lot of hype and fear about AI. And while I would love to have good regulation against risky applications, I'm also seeing a lot of regulation that I think runs the risk of stifling the technology and this will be to the detriment of everyone."

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Sir Martin Sorrell, chairman of S4 Capital

"We got an election in India and Modi will be re-elected and that is good for India and for the world... He is the ultimate master of branding and branding countries. He has done a superb job on positioning (India) and if you look at the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) growth in India, the last year's projections for this year, it will embarrass a number of other countries."

"I am pessimistic about the world but remain optimistic about India...Amid the geopolitical issues around the US and China, the Russia-Ukraine situation, and the terrible conflict in the Middle East, India has is the go-to market as an alternative to China in Asia. India is very well positioned and with very strong growth potential. India will be the third largest economy of the world by 2050. I remain a raging bull."

"AI has huge opportunities in advertising. It is another Industrial Revolution as big as the internet or the smartphone ... but with it comes challenges. With elections in many countries this year, it is inevitable that bad actors will misbehave and use AI."

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Swiggy co-founder and group CEO Sriharsha Majety (R) with Moneycontrol's Chandra Srikanth

"We’ve been preparing for our IPO. We’ve added independent directors to the board and there’s all other kinds of preparations that are on."

"There is no denying that it (Zomato being listed) makes life easier for us... I have met Deepinder (Goyal) and have asked him what it is like to run a listed food delivery business. Not just him, I have met a bunch of tech founders who have taken their companies public."

"India is the only country where quick-commerce has broken out and also continues to grow... Instamart’s contribution to overall revenue is increasing and it is the growth driver for the overall group."

"There's a lot more work that we're now doing on Gen AI. We've launched our in-house large language models (LLMs) that enable restaurants to manage their operations easily."

Read: IPO preparations underway, says Swiggy's Sriharsha Majety

Cathy Li, head of AI, data and Metaverse, World Economic Forum

"Everyone is trying, but at the same time, the pace at which technology is being developed is something we have never seen before. So, everyone is struggling to catch up."

"The policy itself must be adaptive and flexible, emphasising principles over excessive prescription. A highly prescriptive approach would not benefit anyone and could create regulatory burdens and compliance costs for smaller businesses."

"As AI models become not only more powerful but also capable of running on smaller datasets, a sea of opportunities emerge. Countries like India can truly leverage these opportunities."

"AI is not the first to disrupt the labour market. We need to look at how to protect the labour market, particularly at the country level."

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Noshir Kaka, senior partner, McKinsey

"20 percent is the expansion in TAM (total addressable market)...There's a 30 percent productivity opportunity on the table... we are seeing a 40 percent opportunity in support functions...And finally, these firms are going to see an 80-100 percent increase in developer satisfaction."

"It is way too early to say that generative AI is starting to affect the headcount. The first movers will reap massive advantages on growth and efficiency, but most importantly, on talent because that's where good talent wants to go."

"I think India is a bright spot, not just from an economic perspective, but from multiple areas...If you look at what the government is doing on digital public infrastructure, the scale, the speed, the cost of serving that is incredible. You have not seen that anywhere else in the world."

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Niranjan Kumar Gupta, CEO, Hero MotoCorp

"The EV industry is a game where one still has to wait to see winners emerge. We need to wait for few more years for winners to emerge."

"EV market has gone through a bit of ups and downs because of the changing outlook and viewpoint and lesser clarity on regulations and subsidies."

"I'm very bullish on India and Hero as a company is also very bullish. There are geopolitical issues that are happening but remember the world has gone through massive pandemic or covid and then of course the huge thing of inflation...Central banks across have tamed the situation to a level and back home India as well, the story is extremely positive. There are more upsides than downsides moving forward."

"The outlook for EVs is positive, we are there with Vida we are soon going to cross 100 cities from 3 cities in the month of March 2024...As we are moving forward what we have done is we have allocated most towards premium vehicles and EVs."

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Manish Kejriwal, founder and managing partner, Kedaara Capital

"Global firms have already raised a large pool of capital for deployment in Asia. Historically 40-50 percent of this pool was going to China, which will now pivot towards India and Japan, at least for the short term."

"Fundraising, new investments and exits were lower in 2023 than previous years. At Kedaara, it was the best year. We deployed more than $450 million across 5 deals and $125 million co-investments at a time when environment was not strong."

"In 2024, you will see more global funds becoming multi asset class. Instead of doing just private equity and real estate, they will go for infrastructure and private credit as well."

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GV Prasad, vice chairman and managing director, Dr Reddy's Laboratories

"AI is going to be a force multiplier. We are early in the adoption cycle. Between AI modelling and simulation and machine learning, we have done quite a few experiments now. That we are incorporating into our process now."

"API, generics and biologics. But we are going to build on innovation through partnerships. We are opening a new initiative on public health...Our public health initiative will focus on low and middle class income countries and how we make products available and accessible to vast portion of the world through our network."

"I don’t see major consolidation happening. There will be some PE-driven companies which are going to be acquired by strategic players. I think that will continue. You will see 2,3,4 deals a year at most, but not a wave of large company consolidation."

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Romal Shetty (R), chief executive officer, Deloitte South Asia

"The trust levels of Indian companies are not as much… and that is because I think we haven't done as much on governance as we should be doing."

"Deloitte in India has about 120,000 people. We believe that in the next three to four years, we will… probably have close to 250-260,000 people."

"We've invested a lot in M&A because we believe that India is going to see a host of M&As. With the work that we're doing with various state governments, we see a lot more focus on bringing investments into the country."

Read: Davos 2024: Trust in Indian businesses low, says Deloitte's South Asia CEO Romal Shetty

Hitachi India MD Bharat Kaushal at World Economic Forum 2024, Davos

"The ATM, as well as the digital transactions, both have doubled up and grown explosively in the last six, seven years. So it is a big business."

"The quality of the capital goods industry, being used for public investments, is extremely high now, and they are at par with global standards. Fifteen to twenty years ago, when companies invested in India, the Indian market was more cost-to-cost, and margins were earned overseas. However, now, what is produced in India and overseas is comparable."

"India provides a humongous opportunity across all its sectors...At one point in time, India was known more for its talent and size of middle class as a market. But the implementation done with public investments in India, in the rail sector also with pole position they have taken in the digital space, allows "green" to be the new defining pole position that India's frontier would be."

Read: Davos 2024: Quality of India's capital goods at par with global standards, says Hitachi India MD Bharat Kaushal