Industry leaders crown Bengaluru as global GCC capital

Speaking to DH on the sidelines of the summit, Karnataka IT/BT Minister Priyank Kharge pointed out, “Policies are always evolving. We will be getting a Version 4 of our IT policy next year following a stakeholder consultation six months from now after seeing how emerging technologies pan out.”

Bengaluru: Just as Karnataka’s IT/BT Minister Priyank Kharge reiterated the state’s status as a destination for global capability centres (GCCs), industry leaders gathered at the GCC roundtable held on the second day of the Bengaluru Tech Summit, lauded Bengaluru and Karnataka’s growth in the sector and in artificial intelligence (AI). Yet they also emphasised the importance of continued innovation.

For his part, speaking to DH on the sidelines of the summit, Kharge pointed out, “Policies are always evolving. We will be getting a Version 4 of our IT policy next year following a stakeholder consultation six months from now after seeing how emerging technologies pan out.”

“We will attract more GCCs because we have everything they need to succeed here,” he added.

The minister also proposed an initiative urging 100 corporate entities to adopt 100 educational institutions to foster better synergies between academia and industry.

The panel discussions saw several observations and suggestions come in from different industry stakeholders.

"The biggest word in innovation is AI. GCCs have to evolve at the same pace as technology in order to break the boundaries. The culture of innovation is most important for GCCs,” noted Milesh J, Head of Strategy and Operations, SAP Labs India.

Manpreet Singh Ahuja, Chief Digital Officer, PwC India, said, “As per a PwC report, AI will add $15 trillion through economic activity. As a country, we are possibly best positioned to have a lion’s share in this.”

Speaking on similar lines, Raunak Bhinge, Managing Director at Infinite Uptime, declared, “The fourth industrial revolution will be driven by the internet of things (IoT), AI, big data, and advanced robotics. Global industry 4.0 market size is expected to reach $337.1 billion by 2028.”

Ruchir Dixit, Vice President and Country Manager, Siemens EDA, added, “The next wave of innovation will come where we will be able to create devices and other products to help us capture more, store more, and transit more while finding ways to reduce the losses in transmission.”

However, Rahul Chari, founder and CTO, PhonePe cautioned, “End-to-end, the ecosystem is becoming more cognisant of how to handle frauds. But, security, detection of fraud, prevention of fraud, will always be a catchup game. For example, all the positives of AI and data usage has a negative in terms of it becoming a new tool for folks to fraud. That is the new fraud gear we have to fight.”

Pradeep Menon, Managing Director and CEO, HSBC Technology India, observed, “The GCC ecosystem has evolved, including the IT ecosystem, for about 25-30 years now. But for us to have escape velocity, business connect and customer centricity is very important. This has to be inculcated by culture as much as by the ecosystems in which we play. A lot of growth has come in from the sheer prowess of having digital tech skills, but you'll need to do more.”

The industry leaders also spoke about data centres taking off. As Vinish Bawa, Partner and Telecom Sector Leader, PwC India, pointed out, “We will see 40-50% year-on-year growth in this space in India.”