MC EXCLUSIVE AI Summit: India’s AI adoption already outpacing western nations, country has huge opportunities, says SAP’s Neumann

"India has both opportunity and challenges, and I feel the opportunities will prevail," Neumann said.

• India leads in AI adoption, surpassing many western countries
• SAP sees huge AI-driven opportunities for India's growth
• SAP has over 17,000 employees and major R&D presence in India

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India has huge opportunities in the AI sector as people are not only IT savvy, they are also very positive about new technologies, Clas Neumann, Senior Vice President and Head of Global SAP Labs Network told Moneycontrol on Wednesday.

"In many studies it shows that AI adoption in India is already higher than many western countries," said Neumann on the sidelines of India AI Impact Summit 2026.

"India has both opportunity and challenges (in AI), and I feel the opportunities will prevail," SAP’s Senior VP said.

"AI gives huge opportunities for more productivity, more education, healthcare, and more jobs…Overall, India will benefit greatly in the long run," said Neumann.

SAP’s India business

On SAP’s business in India, Neumann said that the company "has thousands of customers now emerging on the AI roadmap—which are making their businesses more sustainable, agile and efficient."

We are digitizing the Indian industry, said the SAP’s Senior VP.

"SAP has continuously invested in India for more than 3 decades – which is not only in software engineering. We have our second largest engineering hub in India, next to the headquarter in Germany," said Neumann.

Meanwhile, Neumann called the India AI Impact Summit 2026 – an "enormously large" summit. "It is impressive. Many deep interactions go on here, people from NGO, government, and society are all discussing the impact of AI and how to make it more sustainable.

SAP is the fifth most valuable listed company in Europe – with a market capitalization of $235 billion. The company generates the majority of its revenue from cloud services and is focused on leveraging AI to drive efficiencies for businesses. The company offers enterprise products across cloud solutions, expense management, supply chain management, and analytics.

SAP has over 17,000 employees spread across Bengaluru, Pune, Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Delhi in India. The 53-year-old German tech giant has over 40 per cent of its global R&D workforce in India, says the company.