India Is Becoming an Architect of the Global AI Order | Ivana Bartoletti of Wipro

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_01] Where India is in the A.I. journey, they became kind of the IT services center for the world and they have tremendous human resources. It looks to me like they were so successful at that they didn't transition to A.I. until fairly late in the game.

[00:00:19] [SPEAKER_00] India is no longer just a consumer or a talent exporter in artificial intelligence. So it's to an extent becoming an architect of the global A.I. order. India is an A.I. power.

[00:00:31] [SPEAKER_01] India also has that ambition and frankly it makes more sense to me that India sort of lead on the global south.

[00:00:39] [SPEAKER_00] The European Union wrote the rules, the U.S. wrote the checks, and India's writing the code and it's writing the code in 22 languages, right?

[00:00:48] [SPEAKER_01] Craig- Let's start with your introduction and then we'll talk about what you guys are doing in India and how India is shaping up in the A.I. world.

[00:01:02] [SPEAKER_00] Ivana Bartoletti and I'm the Vice President and Chief Privacy and the AI Governance Officer for Wipro. And also I advise the Council of Europe on artificial intelligence and human rights, particularly gender. And I've authored a couple of books, one on the politics and geopolitics of A.I.

[00:01:29] [SPEAKER_00] And another one, sort of the use of A.I. in financial services. And I was before at Oxford University and Oxford Internet Institute as a fellow and then at Virginia Tech on privacy and cybersecurity and machine learning. So it's sort of provided the intersection between business, academia and international institutions.

[00:01:53] [SPEAKER_01] And how long have you been with Wipro?

[00:01:56] [SPEAKER_00] For years now. For years. Even more than for years. Gosh, time flies, honestly.

[00:02:02] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. So you were at this summit in India, the A.I. Summit. But I'd like first to hear your view of where India is in the A.I. journey. And then we'll talk about the broader issues.

[00:02:25] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. So, yeah. So the A.I. Summit was held three weeks ago in New Delhi. It was an interesting summit that speaks to what you're asking. You know, so it speaks to where India is at at the moment. So I have been to previous summits. And of course, you know, these are summits. So it's not like.

[00:02:48] [SPEAKER_00] But it was interesting because it was the most open summit I'd been to compared to Bletchley Park or Paris Love. Yeah. The topic went from Paris, which was action summit to impact summit. So the topic of the summit in India was the impact of A.I. on business, well-being, society and inclusion.

[00:03:15] [SPEAKER_00] And it was open in the sense that literally people could come in, register and come in. And of course, there was sort of head of states and A.I. ministers from across the world. But it was interesting because it was open and there was a lot of young people coming in to listen.

[00:03:32] [SPEAKER_00] And it speaks to me to the to the to the where is India as at the moment, because India is no longer a just a consumer or a talent exporter in artificial intelligence. So it is to an extent becoming an architect of the global A.I. order.

[00:03:53] [SPEAKER_00] And I think the summit was about saying and demonstrating that it was about saying India is an A.I. power. It does A.I. in a different way from other superpowers, the U.S. or China to an extent, the EU. And and the focus India was gave at the summit was on responsible A.I., on inclusion.

[00:04:22] [SPEAKER_00] Prime Minister Modi, not just at the summit, but previously said in meeting with tech leaders, said, you know, there's no compromise on ethical A.I. And for India, this is important because obviously when India talks inclusion, it doesn't just talk about the nice thing to do. But inclusion is also about bringing the people along in a country that historically has wider economic divide.

[00:04:48] [SPEAKER_00] So it's interesting. The question is not, you know, whether India will or won't be a major A.I. power is is sort of how India plans to define this. And I think that the summit spoke to that in the sense that Prime Minister Modi was was quite clear in that, you know, come to India. This is a good place to do innovation. So doing India scale up in India and then bring it to the rest of the world.

[00:05:13] [SPEAKER_00] So it's a definition of a unique and different way in the global sort of A.I. landscape to really come in with with the uniqueness of sort of the India landscape. So that was really interesting, I have to say.

[00:05:29] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. And, you know, I was in Saudi Arabia for a conference last year, I guess. And there was a lot of talk. They're pouring money into A.I., as everybody knows. But there was a lot of talk of them as being the leader of the global south. That was kind of their aspiration. But India also has that ambition.

[00:05:58] [SPEAKER_01] And frankly, it makes more sense to me that India sort of lead on the global south, although they don't have the financial resources that the Arab states do. It is. Was there any discussion about that?

[00:06:15] [SPEAKER_00] No, it's really interesting what you say, because I have also been very involved in Saudi Arabia in the last few years and and really see the sort of the the the big investments, you know, in in in in A.I. And and and it's been an interesting, very interesting journey to watch. Of course, the very different realities.

[00:06:39] [SPEAKER_00] I mean, India is a country with unique strengths in the sense that it's a country with one four point billion people is a country where that exports 20 percent of global data, the producers, sorry, 20 percent of global data where 700 and a hundred thousand.

[00:07:00] [SPEAKER_00] Sorry, million people have a mobile phone and therefore, you know, that produce produce data and consume data is a country where there is a massive appetite for innovation, where 60 percent of the population is young as a country that produces enormous amount of talent.

[00:07:19] [SPEAKER_00] English speaking talent is a country where technical education and where there is a fierce competition to to get into good education, especially on the on the technical side. So, I mean, these are unique points of India. In addition to that, what really strikes in India is the ability to scale up large digital public infrastructure.

[00:07:47] [SPEAKER_00] I mean, I am always at least by from the other to the to UPI and sort of the unified payment across the country, how they've been able to to do something like this and to scale it up to so many people across the country. And so obviously now for India, the strategy is how do we bring the AI everywhere?

[00:08:14] [SPEAKER_00] So not just in the tier one and tier two cities, but how do we bring into the more sort of rural areas? The questions are, yes, of course, about models, but about applications that can be really, really used and developed by the people in India and then serve the world. The questions are about obviously infrastructure. You know, AI is far more than than just applications and models. It's very much about Earth infrastructure.

[00:08:41] [SPEAKER_00] So we have also seen during the summit loads of announcements about infrastructure and cables and data centers and chips and all of that. So it's it's it's an interesting country that is mixing also that the sort of the need for Southern AI, Southern in the sense we want systems that speak our languages, that speak to our values and culture.

[00:09:08] [SPEAKER_00] And at the same time, bringing in investments coming from sort of the large, the large corporations. So it's different from what is happening in Saudi Arabia. And obviously, you know, it's a there is a strong relationship in the sense that a lot of Indians do and work in Saudi and but they are very different sort of landscape from a technological standpoint. And it was the first thing that happened in the global South. That's really interesting. The first one.

[00:09:34] [SPEAKER_01] Oh, that's great.

[00:09:35] [SPEAKER_00] And that might be underestimated because all the other summits they were held in in in sort of the in the UK, France and South Korea. But this was the first one held in the global South. And and the fact that New Delhi, it was interesting walking and driving and across New Delhi those few days, you know, those AI written everywhere.

[00:09:58] [SPEAKER_00] And of course, that was there was a sign that they want to they really want to be part in in in that journey. And obviously, you know, it's positioning is is going to be very important moving forward.

[00:10:12] [SPEAKER_00] And that's the summit happened after two important deals happened after the deal with the US and happened after the deal with the EU with sort of on the line going to to to India gate and joining for the parade with with with with Prime Minister Modi. So it happened at at at an important time in terms of India position globally.

[00:10:36] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. From what I understood when I was there and there were there are a couple of things. One, they do have this data center build out program, but they are still very far behind their the rest of the world.

[00:10:58] [SPEAKER_01] I mean, the rest of the major AI players in the in the capacity of their of their data centers for for scaling AI. But there were some some deals mentioned or announced. Can you talk about the infrastructure, how the timeline or how how important that is for them to reach their goals?

[00:11:27] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. So it's interesting because so they have the investment to the money. The support is coming to side. So it's coming from the government side and it's coming from private and international side from government side.

[00:11:41] [SPEAKER_00] So what we've seen over recent months has been sort of the AI, India, I mission, which is really something big in India at the moment, which is spans compute capacity, training, AI innovation, startups, data set platforms and loads of other things and financing and also working on future skills. So that is with a big investment on safe and trusted AI.

[00:12:11] [SPEAKER_00] I mean, there is a lot of push for I mean, it's the first time actually that I'm seeing such a big push, for example, on privacy enhancing technologies and partnership with academia and say you've got to invest in research in privacy enhancing tech, which, you know, spelling it out so clearly.

[00:12:26] [SPEAKER_00] So this is one thing. So that's from government side. And and also after the summit, there have been announcements from government in towards increasing the sort of GP, GP infrastructure and and the numbers they're talking. I've got it, I've got it written somewhere, but it is is reaches to the 40,000 units that was announced by government from private international side.

[00:12:53] [SPEAKER_00] We have seen a lot of announcements from Microsoft saying, you know, massive investment, 17 billion investments in in in in cloud, India's cloud and the infrastructure. So they describe it as the largest investment in India.

[00:13:09] [SPEAKER_00] And that builds on a previous big commitment that they had done, the Microsoft had done in India and then and lots of other investments coming in in infrastructure from from from from private companies. So I think in international private companies. But I think the government is very much aware, you know, that they have to to scale up. And I think this is was also the purpose of the summit to attract a lot of international company to to push.

[00:13:39] [SPEAKER_01] We pro am I pronouncing that right always?

[00:13:41] [SPEAKER_00] Correct. Correct.

[00:13:42] [SPEAKER_01] Can you talk because a part of this what happened in India is they became kind of the IT services center for the world. And they have, you know, tremendous human resources, obviously, in a way, it looks to me like they were so successful at that, that they didn't transition to A.I. until fairly late in the game.

[00:14:12] [SPEAKER_01] But can you talk about what we pro does there? Would what your role has been and how you see the landscape changing?

[00:14:21] [SPEAKER_00] Well, you ask a very good question when you say did the companies India in India adapt fast enough? I mean, that's a really interesting point, because basically what you say is looking for many, many years, these companies, they've been the back office operations now for the rest of the world.

[00:14:39] [SPEAKER_00] And now with A.I., I actually think that these large companies and WIPA is one of the largest in India, 240,000 people working on digital transformation on sort of across sectors from finance to manufacturing to sort of banking, healthcare.

[00:15:03] [SPEAKER_00] I think there was a clear understanding. And quite early on, because these are international companies. I mean, WIPA has got offices everywhere, very strong in the US and a very strong US presence, but everywhere across the world. So that A.I. was going rapid to rapidly, especially after generative A.I. made that splash and went from, yes, there is there are a few engineers that can work on A.I. So everybody can work on A.I.

[00:15:35] [SPEAKER_00] They realized, you know, we all realized very quickly, look, you know, we have to to experiment and we have to adopt and adopt a scale and fast. I think companies like mine, they really understood that it was as for any other company around the world because of the impact that generative A.I. was having and the fact that it was reaching everybody.

[00:15:56] [SPEAKER_00] They were also quite well positioned in sort of taking that balanced approach between how much do we let people experiment versus how much do we remain risk adverse? And especially because when generative A.I. came out, there's a lot of horror stories now about things getting leaked everywhere and, you know, people putting confidential data from clients and things like that.

[00:16:27] [SPEAKER_00] So two elements here. The first is these companies have not just done back office operations. I mean, these are companies that have been doing deep innovation with large clients globally. So there's been more exposure than than one from an external standpoint could have thought. And the second is that they were very well placed because of the huge amount of talent that they had.

[00:16:51] [SPEAKER_00] They were very well placed to turn the experimentation into use cases. So, for example, what we did at Wipro and I think that we said we've got to train everybody. I mean, the first the first thing that we said, we're going to train everybody. So we're going to let people experiment in within safe constraints. But we are going to train everybody in what is this? This is coming up with this generative A.I., how to use it, how to use it responsibly. And also.

[00:17:21] [SPEAKER_00] We cut to an extent, crowd sources, crowd source the use cases, because we basically said there is nobody better than our employees that who knows where to innovate. And in this, Greg, the India culture really helped because this is a culture that is not adverse to technology. It's used to use technology every single day in every facet of their life.

[00:17:46] [SPEAKER_00] So when we said, well, actually, you know, tell us which are the use cases where you would actually make your life easier at work. We had a proliferation of use cases. And this is where I think the India advantage is, you know. So, yes, in the past, companies probably were like that. But actually, what I've seen in Whipper is when you unleash this stuff, people were so hungry for innovation.

[00:18:13] [SPEAKER_00] They're not, you know, of course, everybody is like looking at the future and jobs and things. But they are the first ones to say, I can make my work better. It's a cultural thing. And and this is a competitive edge. You know, this is competitive advantage that I see in the way that that my company operates. And the way that my co-workers, the way my teams, the way the people, the sort of company of that size, you know, the way that they embrace and push and push for innovation.

[00:18:42] [SPEAKER_00] So and and then sometimes, you know, you've got this you have this tension right between sort of how fast you go and how many constraints, gut rails you put in place. And that's, you know, and that's where you say, OK. But it's also a good thing because then you encourage them to say, OK, let's find less, you know, privacy enhancing ways or legal protection by design. So it's a good dynamic. And I think it's it's quite healthy.

[00:19:10] [SPEAKER_00] So, yeah, on this, it's quite it's been quite an interesting journey so far.

[00:19:14] [SPEAKER_01] In the midst of this digital transformation in India is the massive IT services, the business process operations.

[00:19:30] [SPEAKER_01] Is that shifting in any way or because the other thing that's happening is, you know, AI, one of the first places that's being applied is in call centers. And, you know, there was I've talked a lot of these companies. Oh, you know, it doesn't mean that we're going to reduce headcount in the call centers. It'll make them more efficient.

[00:19:58] [SPEAKER_01] But I frankly question that because it seems that that, you know, with AI voice and all that technology, you're going to need fewer people sitting in call centers. But, yeah, how is the how is all of this affecting the existing industry? How is it affecting Wipro?

[00:20:20] [SPEAKER_00] I think there's a lot of glamour in the media. Yeah. When you talk about AI, you know, and I think we've got to be realistic. I think AI is changing a lot of things. And especially when it comes to sort of efficiency gains and a lot of these things. But I also think that there are things that are very important.

[00:20:45] [SPEAKER_00] So, for example, client-centricity and, you know, having a custom sort of a very sort of and I don't think that AI is going to replace that. So I think you say that it's true. I mean, you said, you know, when you talk to these companies and they say we're not going to cut costs, but we're going to augment or we're going to make. I think part of it is not really a lie.

[00:21:10] [SPEAKER_00] I mean, it's true in the sense that it's not like this huge change happening and that sometimes it's very useful for some people to portray in the medium. That, you know, AI is coming and is replacing everything and we're going heading to disaster and, you know, everybody's going to be jobless and stuff like that.

[00:21:32] [SPEAKER_00] I don't know what you think, but I think this quite dramatic narrative is not really mirroring reality as it is. And we see this from this. We see companies that have said we're going to go 100% AI in call centers or, you know, in customer services and then having to retract. But not because AI doesn't work. It's because AI works alongside humans. It's not, you know, there are two different sets of skills and intelligence.

[00:22:02] [SPEAKER_00] And I think a lot of this we always have to dissect, you know, and say, OK, this announcement, what does that really mean, actually? And then a few days later, you read the story and you say, well, actually, they've had to rehire the humans because they were not able to do the job. But it's normal because it's different skills. So obviously things are changing, right? So we are infusing AI in everything that we do, right? So everything that we do, we are infusing AI.

[00:22:29] [SPEAKER_00] Now with agentic AI, we, you know, whatever it's. But that doesn't mean that suddenly humans disappear. You know, it means that we are also reshaping the way that we do things because AI brings benefits, clearly. And but also adds new complexities and a new layer of humanity, if you want. Yeah.

[00:22:59] [SPEAKER_00] And I don't think it's so like so black and white or so. So I think there will be obviously there will be changes, right? There will be changes in the way the things that, you know, when you know where we locate humans and where we locate machines. But there are things like, you know, a human customer centric approach, the centricity of the sort of client relationship that that cannot be automated. So, yeah.

[00:23:26] [SPEAKER_00] So I think it's very much of work in progress here. Yeah. And I don't think it's so we are in a situation where we can say things are like this or like that because we are evolving. And I mean, agentic AI obviously brings a lot of new exciting sort of challenges.

[00:23:44] [SPEAKER_00] And but even there, even there, you know, it's not so rapid as people think, you know, people, companies are starting with less problematic areas of automation. There's still a lot of governance issues that they they become very relevant because it's not about being nice and good. It's also about survival and being able to innovate in the long term. So it's I think what keeps it or a lot of this is in progress. Yeah.

[00:24:12] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. I mean, one of the things I wondered is whether a lot of these companies like Wipro would would shift into AI consulting or AI engineering or, you know, to help. There's a lot of companies in the West that want to implement AI but don't really have the skills.

[00:24:40] [SPEAKER_01] India has this tremendous workforce, skilled workforce. Do you see that happening at all?

[00:24:49] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. And I see this happening. I'd say more. I say that it's and it's probably where sort of the positioning of Prime Minister Modi at the summit comes in. Right. Because what Modi said was Prime Minister said is really interesting. What he basically said is we're going to be leaders. But hear me out. In responsible, trustworthy AI.

[00:25:14] [SPEAKER_00] The reason why he's saying this is because he's adding to the India. Yes, we have a huge amount of people who are trained and engineers. We are the talent hub of the world. Yeah. You can. But we also do things in the right way. So the positioning is like, you know, India is the conscience of the world when it comes to AI. And obviously nobody, I mean, we're not born yesterday.

[00:25:44] [SPEAKER_00] Nobody does things because it is just out of, you know, idealism. People do things also because, especially the Prime Minister, because they want to push the country. And to me it's important because what he's basically saying is we do things in the right way and you can trust us. We have a safe, trusted partner to innovate with. So he's not just saying we've got the talent.

[00:26:11] [SPEAKER_00] He's also saying, especially in this shifting geopolitical landscape, we can be a safe, trusted partner to work with. And obviously countries around the world, they lack this talent. They do. I mean, I live in Europe. I live in Germany. You know, Germany, the leader in manufacturing, in cars until, you know, it was. But it's also a country that is going through quite a complex economical situation at the moment as a lot of.

[00:26:41] [SPEAKER_00] And in Europe at the moment, for example, there is a big push for Southern AI for many different reasons. So I think what India is saying is we do things. We can be a safe partner. We can build innovation that lasts. And innovation that is sustainable. So it's not just a matter of numbers. It's not just a matter of, yes, we provide you the workforce. It's whatever you come and develop in India and you take and you use is also safe, trustworthy, and reliable.

[00:27:09] [SPEAKER_00] And this is also rooted in values. And I think, so this is also related to what we were saying, you know, earlier in terms of where is India positioning. We Pro is, I mean, to me, this is part of the core of my work.

[00:27:27] [SPEAKER_00] You know, core of my work is I want to make sure that whatever we do, however I work with clients, when we innovate with them or in enterprise AI that we produce, create software that we create. I want to make sure that we do it in a way that has privacy, security and legal protection, resiliency to the design of what we're doing. And I feel strong in this because I'm part of an India company that is making a big push on this.

[00:27:56] [SPEAKER_00] And obviously, yes, you say consulting. Yes. I mean, we are consulting that in the sense that what you say, you know, we can, you talk to organizations that don't know how to go from a proof of concept to deployment of scale. And they don't know how to do that. They don't have necessarily the talent to do this.

[00:28:21] [SPEAKER_00] And and they don't sometimes know that, you know, how to bring that proof of concept, how to evaluate it, how to make sure it's the right one, how to cut through the glamour and the media announcements and how to do something that really brings long term value. And that is the problem often, not that a lot of companies have. And we see the reports in the newspapers, you know, we see, you know, is AI bringing return for investment?

[00:28:49] [SPEAKER_00] But it depends, you know, it depends on whether one is innovating for the sake of it or if an organization is really innovating because they want to bring low term value and they've identified the right tools to do that. So, I mean, yeah, so I think this is this is the positioning of India and therefore also strengthen the position of my company.

[00:29:12] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. And another thing I've found interesting is India is not, from what I understood, not really looking at horizontal AI. AI, they're not building a national LLM. They're more focused on on vertical applications. And is that reflected in in Wipro's approach?

[00:29:40] [SPEAKER_00] There is a big push, I think, for real use cases and applications. So it's not just about the models. Yes, of course, you know, it is about models and and small language, smaller language models that reflect the language, for example, the variety of languages and spoken in India.

[00:30:06] [SPEAKER_00] That reflect sort of the the sort of cultural background of the country. But it's more about it's also about applications and real use cases, real applications that support and help Indian in everyday life.

[00:30:25] [SPEAKER_00] And I think this is also what we're saying earlier, you know, this is where a lot of the strength is, because if you if you think, you know, the ability that they have to scale up and this is reflecting in, I think, the appetite that a company and sort of all the teams across Wipro, for example, they have for saying, yes, OK, let's, you know, let's take this license and experiment and see, you know, what is a good use case. I mean, we are client zero from everything that we do.

[00:30:54] [SPEAKER_00] The reason for this is because there is a big appetite to try out things and to understand what are the use cases, how can we is it worth scaling up? Right. And then at that point, is it really worth scaling up? We try in house first. So I think it's it's it is reflecting also in the mentality of of a lot of the leadership and why the leadership in in companies as well.

[00:31:18] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not sure that you're in a position to answer this, but I wondered, you know, you have this this workforce in the business processes. Outsourcing, I guess, the O is outsourcing industry. Are the skill sets there?

[00:31:38] [SPEAKER_01] Uh, adequate because another thing I, I saw in India was there's there's tremendous pressure because the. The openings in the elite, uh, you know, the IIT Indian Institute of Technologies network is so small and you've got this tremendous. Uh, yeah.

[00:32:07] [SPEAKER_01] Uh, uh, number of, of young people that want to get into those institutions and I think less than 20% succeed. So, uh, you've got this spillover that then goes in the secondary institutions, uh, or not, but the, the workforce that we pro has assembled. Uh, do you have to go, uh, you, you talked about training.

[00:32:35] [SPEAKER_01] Can you do it through training to, to bring these people up to speed? Do you, is there, uh, do you need to, to source a new talent that's more AI focused? Uh, because it's not only we pro I imagine it's the entire, uh, uh, uh, services industry, IT services industry.

[00:32:58] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. It's, uh, I mean, I can't speak for the whole country, obviously, but what I can say is what I seen and I witnessed. And it's, it's, it's, it's a good question. So basically the question is do, because of competition in getting to this top tier universities, right?

[00:33:16] [SPEAKER_00] Do, are we really dealing with a workforce that has deep engineering skills and DPI skills, you know, compared to, for example, what a worker in Microsoft would do? Right. And I think, I think that is, that, that's the key question that India is also asking itself. I mean, the big investment in skills comes from that. The huge investment is investment in skills and companies play their part.

[00:33:46] [SPEAKER_00] So one thing that I can speak for mine, I don't, can't speak for the others, but one thing that we do, we have a huge sort of investment in skills looking at, we have a skills council where we look at what is in the market. Sort of what are the needs of the market and also looking strategically, what's about to come and where do we need to skill people?

[00:34:07] [SPEAKER_00] So it's, it's obvious, you know, that is a, that is, that is a responsibility that you as a company, you need to have because you need to understand, you understand where you need to upskill, where you need to acquire, when you need to get people into courses and training, where you need to set up your own. And look, I mean, I also feel that a lot of this stuff, there is still somehow, I mean, I can see my own field of work, right?

[00:34:36] [SPEAKER_00] Which is around sort of security and privacy and, and, and, and design. You don't have the places to learn yet. Because if I look at a genetic AI, right? And I have to say, talk about, you know, to implement it. This is my job. And I have to look into how to implement security and privacy and human oversight in a genetic AI. Where do I learn it from?

[00:35:04] Okay.

[00:35:05] [SPEAKER_00] I have to, I, I, I, I, I've been teaching university, but by the time I was teaching this year, at the time I was teaching university, it was a few years ago. There wasn't there yet. Right. So I have to use what I know and apply to it, to, to this, gather all the expertise, gather, you know, and, and then cascade to the rest of the organization and say, this is where, where we introduce how we design, for example, a genetic AI.

[00:35:32] [SPEAKER_00] And now my focus, for example, is, is on sort of humility of a genetic AI. I just think that in my mind where I joined TKI in order, you know, they need to show when, where they don't know. It's a design issue that I've got in mind that I'm trying to work out. But, you know, it's, and we work with another partner, a company that we've acquired and a company called Design It. So there's a lot of legal design that I'm working on to empower individuals in a way that is effective and meaningful, not tick the box exercise.

[00:36:02] [SPEAKER_00] But a lot of this is learning by doing. Right. So that's the thing. Right. Because a lot of this stuff, we are, things go so fast. So it's about acquiring skills. It's about training skills. It's about letting people experiment themselves. It's about getting licensed to do stuff and let people play with them. It's a combination of things. And of course, this is a sort of a company level, a country level.

[00:36:30] [SPEAKER_00] You know, what India is doing is, I think, is understandable. You know, they're pushing massively on skills and they're pushing massively on tasking universities and public-private partnerships to say, hey, you have to innovate in these specific skills. So, yeah, I think it's, yeah, I think it's accomplice, but not just for India.

[00:36:50] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. The, what's your sense that, I mean, because certainly there's no denying that India is starting late on this. Do you think that they have the plan in place to become a serious AI player as a nation?

[00:37:16] [SPEAKER_01] Or is it really going to be a shift in, in the services industry that, that, that brings AI into the global economy as an AI player? I mean, is it because, you know, they have to do a, uh, uh, data center build out?

[00:37:39] [SPEAKER_01] They need to attract a lot of their, uh, best talent that's gone to the West, uh, back to India. That's, that's frankly what China did, uh, early on and, and it served them very well. Uh, but China also poured tremendous resources into the infrastructure. Do you think that this is going to work?

[00:38:05] [SPEAKER_00] You're asking a million dollar question. I mean, you're asking to predict the future, not just for India, but for the rest of the world. I mean, in the sense that, you know, India has democratic legitimacy, linguistic scale, diaspora. I mean, I don't think the aim is trying to outcompute the US or China.

[00:38:26] [SPEAKER_00] I think it's building a trusted AI for 1.4 billion, 1.4 billion people, uh, and the global South and be a trusted partner for companies and countries worldwide. Um, and I think, you know, we always picture the world as a race between the US and China.

[00:38:48] [SPEAKER_00] So, you know, I think, um, it's sometimes, I mean, when I was in India one day at the summit, I was thinking, when I saw all these young people, they're coding. I was like, gosh, I mean, the European union and I'm European wrote the rules. The US write the checks and, and, and, and India's writing the code and he's writing the code in 22 languages. Right.

[00:39:09] [SPEAKER_00] So, um, I'm thinking, I, I thought, you know, I think, I think the race of AI, if you call it like we call it like that is, it's not just a technical one. It's not about just about capability. Um, and it's about many other things is, it's really about institutional capacity to absorb the capability and to drive it.

[00:39:36] [SPEAKER_00] So I think we're, you know, on that, we still have to see, um, what happens in the future.

[00:39:43] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. Um, and when you talk about, uh, India being a partner, uh, on trusted AI, what does that mean exactly?

[00:39:52] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. No, first of all, it means that they have a clear focus on that. Right. So I'll give you an example just today. I got a message from one of the other execs basically say, yes, you know, in Kanakata, which is the Bangalore state, um, the, the local government has just set up a responsibility commission. Privacy, fairness, and, and so there is a big push for that.

[00:40:19] [SPEAKER_00] And, um, so in that cut, you know, is very strong. I mean, the big investment that they're making, for example, in skills around privacy enhancing technologies and all of that is meaningful. You know, you see that this happened. So that's one thing.

[00:40:35] [SPEAKER_00] The second thing is that you have Europe, which is very much by, you know, at least the public perception of, I don't want to get started on, on, on this because I've been sort of in very involved in, in European legislation.

[00:40:52] [SPEAKER_00] But, you know, at least the public perception, um, is Europe does a lot of regulation and, um, the U S they do a lot of, you guys do a lot of, um, venture capital innovation and blah, blah. But at the same time, regulation in many other different ways, you know, whether it's through sanctions and whether it's through states regulating quite toughly. I mean, I was really, I mean, I'm, I'm dealing with AI and human resources.

[00:41:21] [SPEAKER_00] And when I see California regulations, very tough, very strict, you know, even facilitate an AI decision is something that is considered serious enough to be really governed. So, I mean, it's not that there isn't regular, there's a lot of myths, you know, the U S doesn't regulate Europe, regulate, and a lot of this not really, doesn't really reflect what really happens. And then you've got China, which is a different kind of very strong regulation, but very strong, you sort of centralized and government and India's taking a different approach.

[00:41:51] [SPEAKER_00] India says, we're not going to bring in new regulation at the moment, but we're going to leverage what we've got. You know, we have India's a country that has a federal, a nationwide privacy legislation, very strong cybersecurity requirements.

[00:42:05] [SPEAKER_00] And what they're saying is we are adopting what we call a, a techno legal approach, which basically means that we need technology to implement sort of legislation and legislative measures and security and protection into AI in a full accountable AI lifecycle. And then basically, and then we're going to have a lot of soft legislation and soft around this, you know, so we're not going to have an AI big law also because in India, legislating takes a lot of time.

[00:42:35] [SPEAKER_00] And, and, and so I think, so they want to be flexible. They want to be, but they want to be, so what they're, this basically telling the world is you can innovate. We are not going to wrap any strong bureaucracy around it like other jurisdictions, but we, we are doing it in a way that it's safe because we've really put a lot of attention and not just attention,

[00:43:03] [SPEAKER_00] but a lot of technology, but a lot of technology and controls around all what makes AI trusted and, and reliable. So this is the narrative, I think this is where and how they're playing it.

[00:43:18] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. And as a trusted partner, one thing that, that I, that there is this move towards sovereign AI on the part of many countries who don't want, I mean, AI embeds the culture and norms of the people that, that were actually the data that trains the underlying models.

[00:43:47] [SPEAKER_01] And China has been very upfront about trading its models and putting in guardrails that, that adhere to Chinese. Chinese, the old phrase, the U S got a very different cultural and values proposition and their AI.

[00:44:16] [SPEAKER_01] So is India is when you say trusted partner, is it that you don't have to choose between these two, you know, cultural and, and ideological ecosystems that you can build with India.

[00:44:37] [SPEAKER_01] And that's a, uh, uh, uh, uh, something that's, uh, more independent or more tailored to whatever the cultural or, uh, political, uh, environment you're, you're coming from.

[00:44:53] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. I mean, there is an element of that, I would say, I would say the Southern sovereignty is very much of an abused word, like in the sense that. There are so many different kinds of sovereignty, like, and you know, um, there is the tech, the data sovereignty.

[00:45:14] [SPEAKER_00] There is the, um, certainly I would say that, and that matters also because for example, the summit we spoke about with the first one in the global South, right?

[00:45:28] [SPEAKER_00] Certainly there is a sense that, um, a lot of these products have been trained in parts of the world, like in California or, you know, and, and with values and norms that come from there and the people who train them, but they've also been trained with the sweat of the people in the global South.

[00:45:52] [SPEAKER_00] In the sense that, you know, a lot of these tools, they have been trained because there were people sitting in the global South training them. So I think when you say sovereignty in you, I think there is, there are different nuances to it. And there is also these nuance, you know, saying, okay, you know, we are a country that produce so much data.

[00:46:16] [SPEAKER_00] We are a country that produce so much, um, so much, um, uh, so much sort of, uh, is so hungry for innovation. A country that as uses, you know, technology every single moment is, is basically doesn't, doesn't use cash and, and does everything with, with, with, with a smartphone. And, um, is also saying we want to benefit from it. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:46:44] [SPEAKER_00] And, um, that's why, you know, say when my prime minister Modi says, you know, it's about inclusion, inclusion means that, you know, is, is yes, it is AI that speaks our language, but he is AI that speeches and brings together all our people and doesn't leave people behind because, you know, it's, this is the nature of the country.

[00:47:07] [SPEAKER_00] So, um, yeah, to me, this is the, the topic about sovereignty and is, is much more nuanced and, um, and needs to be interpreted, looked at different lenses. And obviously there's the big geopolitical ones. And then, um, you know, now Europe is going very Southern and countries like France and Germany or France in particular, they're saying, you know, government cannot use Microsoft or whatever.

[00:47:34] [SPEAKER_00] Um, and whether we are able to build something similar, I have no idea, but so, yeah, so sovereignty is a complex argument, I feel, but certainly there is the, there is the, the fact that, you know, India is the message that came through.

[00:47:50] [SPEAKER_00] And I think that, you know, India is the, the fact that, you know, India is the, the fact that came through quite clearly was, um, in is capable of, um, creating applications that work for India, that can work for India and make India grow and bring growth to India. Whilst, you know, whilst we do this here and we're able to scale it up so well, you know, we can, we can sort of serve companies and the world, um, with this.

[00:48:19] [SPEAKER_00] I think for us, I mean, it's an interesting one because I am a European working for an Indian company as vice president. And that gives me a really, I find myself sometimes in a very unique position being sitting in Europe, in Germany, in the middle of the big debate around sovereignty, working with the Council of Europe. And, and, um, it makes me, so it's a really interesting position to be in.

[00:48:48] [SPEAKER_00] So I feel that, um, the message is very much the message that came from the ice summit, you know, is very much of, um, the, the, the role that India is playing worldwide, uh, the potential of, of the country.

[00:49:12] [SPEAKER_00] So it's a sort of a shift from services exporter to innovation architect, but also, you know, uh, and, um, and I think. For Wipro is very much about, um, um, leveraging the big, the capabilities that we have in house.

[00:49:37] [SPEAKER_00] The, the, the, the, the, the, the fact that, um, operating in a country that, and where a lot of our workforce is in India and a country that wants to put responsible and trustworthy eye first. And really being part of the journey where we bring all this to clients worldwide. So to me, the message is very much aligned to what came out of the summit.

[00:50:00] [SPEAKER_00] The fact that it's really important to, to, um, that India is a really sort of good partner to work with. And we bring an Indian company. It's a work group party to work with, not only because of the talents sort of that we have, which is huge, but also because of the appetite for innovation and, and the, uh, the, the big transformation that, and big push for, for AI that, um, that is India's driving right now.

[00:50:29] [SPEAKER_01] And in practical terms, how do the rest of the world, uh, take advantage of this new focus? Not very new, but this.

[00:50:39] [SPEAKER_00] No, not very new, obviously. But I think it's, I think it's, I think companies that going, they want to go from proof of concept and they want to scale up with AI. They need to do it in a way that brings value in the longterm. And they also need to do in a way which human, uh, in a way that really brings the entire company with them in a way to transform, bring long term value and return for investment.

[00:51:02] [SPEAKER_00] And I think that, um, Wipro is an Indian company is the partner to do this with because it's rooted into not just technical capabilities, but also the ability to govern those technical capabilities. Technical capabilities alone are not enough. And this is where I feel, and I feel very strengthened, um, by the, um, the India summit and, and the, the, the, the, the strategy,

[00:51:30] [SPEAKER_00] the AI strategy that India's taking because it reaffirms that commitment. So it's not just Wipro's, but he's also country behind it.

[00:51:37] [SPEAKER_01] Wipro is building, uh, I mean, you've been traditionally a services consulting company. Yeah.

[00:51:44] [SPEAKER_00] Now we are consulting. So we do a lot of, so the, we're consulting that. So we, we lead with our consulting arm and then we do, you know, innovation for clients and from, from, um, back office operation to going agentic to, um, digitization across healthcare, sort of all of it. It's a massive company. We've got whatever you want to do, we do. It's huge.

[00:52:12] [SPEAKER_00] When I first came from, I was working at Deloitte before, but I first had an interview with an Indian company. So I want, I always worked in very much Western construct, obviously, you know, Deloitte, um, um, um, Barclays Bank and all of this. And then I went to Deloitte to, to, to, to Wipro. I remember my first interview when they told me the numbers, I was like, whoa, it's like, it's huge. Like it's, it's, it's, these, these are very big companies.

[00:52:37] [SPEAKER_01] Does Wipro build solutions? It depends.

[00:52:40] [SPEAKER_00] So there are Wipro build solutions. Yeah. And, and, and also we are, you know, we, um, use existing solutions. All, I mean, existing LLMs, existing hyperscalers and, and according to how the client wants to do it, but in, and, um, we transform other clients. But it depends. And also there are sort of our own solutions. And then we have developed this two platform.

[00:53:06] [SPEAKER_00] They're called Wagon Wings, which has been really like a headache for the past few months. But it's really good because basically the concept is, it's like when you have a plumber coming to your house and you want the plumber, I mean, she or he comes with, with their tools. So it's the same.

[00:53:27] [SPEAKER_00] And then, and, and, and, and we've created these two platforms where Wagon is to build and Wings is for the operation. So basically Wings is hundreds of agents. You can pick and choose, you can get the entire platform. You can, or you can pick and choose the, the, the sort of the agents to deploy in, and then you build it to rebuild it to the, to the Wagon platform.

[00:53:56] [SPEAKER_00] So it's been like an interesting, and that is basically what underpins all the work that we do with our clients. We, we work on these two platforms.

[00:54:06] [SPEAKER_01] I see. And then, and those platforms, the foundation models powering them, are they a selection of models? Yeah.

[00:54:17] [SPEAKER_00] The existence. Yeah.

[00:54:18] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. Yeah. Including open source or are they?

[00:54:23] [SPEAKER_00] Including open source. Yeah.

[00:54:25] [SPEAKER_01] Right.

[00:54:25] [SPEAKER_00] Right. Yeah.

[00:54:27] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. Do you see anybody in India building their own models of foundation models?

[00:54:38] [SPEAKER_00] There's been a lot of debate around this, no? Like people saying, why the, I, I, I don't know. I think the big, I think in, I think the focus at the moment is really on smaller models and, and very, very big on, on applications. The things that will make a difference to, to business life and people's life. And, and I think there's a big push on that.

[00:55:00] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. And on applications, do you see any particular vertical that's, that India is focusing on or that Wipro is focusing on?

[00:55:11] [SPEAKER_00] Well, we affect, I mean, we focus on finance. So financial services, big manufacturing is big. Automative is big. And healthcare. I, I, I mean, I don't know. And you'll have to ask more than that. I don't know which is the focus that India wants to focus on. Um, but I think it cuts across, I mean, the applications for everything in it.

[00:55:41] [SPEAKER_00] And, you know, if you think that, you know, it will only increase. Yeah.

[00:55:45] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. No, I was thinking not so much top down, but, uh, the market, what is the market? Uh, yeah. You see, I mean, or, or is most of the, not most, but is the largest chunk going into healthcare applications or into financial services applications or.

[00:56:05] [SPEAKER_00] I think India cuts across sectors. I mean, but, um, I'll have to, to look into the India I mission to see where, you know, the details of every single sector.