India has world’s third-largest pool of AI expertise: Bain-Microsoft report
Regardless of the nation being a serious hub for AI expertise globally, the hole in demand and provide of AI-educated workers is wider than ever, mentioned the report

India has become one of many world’s largest swimming pools for synthetic intelligence (AI) expertise, whilst adoption of the expertise grows at a gradual tempo within the nation. “Synthetic intelligence is not a fringe expertise for Indian firms,” mentioned a report by Microsoft, consultancy agency Bain & Firm, and trade physique Web and Cellular Affiliation of India (IAMAI).
India’s AI market was valued at $3 billion in 2020, which is roughly simply 1 per cent of the worldwide pie, however it produces 16 per cent of the world’s AI expertise pool — the third highest on this planet. “An evaluation of AI-related employment traits on LinkedIn in 2020 confirmed that India is main the best way in AI expertise penetration throughout occupations, and there was a big uptick in AI-related hiring,” mentioned the report.
Furthermore, the Indian market is anticipated to develop on the second-fastest fee of 20 per cent amongst main economies over the following 5 years, behind solely China.
The findings of this report have been based mostly on the outcomes of a survey accomplished by 148 suppliers and 343 enterprises. The survey respondents have been C-level executives, senior vice-presidents, vice-presidents, and heads of enterprise items/verticals who’re accountable for their firm’s selections associated to AI and ML.
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India has demonstrated speedy adoption of various applied sciences with rise in penetration of the web, fintech, e-commerce, edtech, well being tech, and uptick in enterprise funding in cloud and data expertise (IT). This has created a basis of data, knowledge, and infrastructure which might drive worth by AI, the report mentioned.
International-level AI functionality
Suppliers in India are both forward of or on par with their world counterparts in the case of AI functionality on scale implementations. Indian suppliers state that 65 per cent of their prototypes attain manufacturing scale — a big lead over world suppliers’ 49 per cent success fee.
Cloud platforms have performed a dominant position within the Indian market by providing an end-to-end ecosystem of infrastructure, instruments, libraries, and frameworks to encourage experimentation, speed up growth, and allow scaled deployment, mentioned the report. Different suppliers are more and more constructing their options with the assistance of the infrastructure and instruments supplied by cloud platforms.
A transparent and rising requirement amongst Indian enterprises is to ‘construct’ for their very own customised wants whereas leveraging the market’s constructing blocks, instruments, and infrastructure.
Whereas small enterprises favor to purchase pre-built fashions (45 per cent) as a result of excessive price of constructing in-house, additionally they experiment with simply accessible open-source instruments and frameworks for circumstances they need to develop. Digital native firms have proven an analogous development. Suppliers, too, are inclined in direction of constructing their fashions utilizing third-party help or open-source instruments or companies.
Roughly 80 per cent of enterprises have no less than one AI mannequin in manufacturing, indicating intensive penetration of AI/ML throughout enterprises. Nonetheless, utilization of AI throughout features and use circumstances continues to be low, with solely 35 per cent broad adopters.
Demand-supply hole
The demand for AI expertise comes on the again of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) that search AI contractors, and huge organisations which might be looking for AI and machine studying expertise for digital transformation. Nonetheless, regardless of the nation being a serious hub for AI expertise globally, the hole in demand and provide of AI-educated workers is wider than ever.
This was highlighted in one other report printed on June 23 by the Nationwide Affiliation of Software program and Companies Firms (Nasscom), which famous that whereas demand outpaced provide of AI expertise in India by round 14 per cent in 2018, the hole widened to 33 per cent final 12 months, studies Mint.
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Nasscom’s report said that even the superior adopters of AI and automation companies throughout Indian enterprises are at early phases — they’re buying AI companies from expertise firms and deploying throughout departments for operational efficiencies, and never innovating to construct their very own companies on prime of AI platforms.
Intensive penetration
“Roughly 80 per cent of enterprises have no less than one AI mannequin in manufacturing, indicating intensive penetration of AI/ML throughout enterprises,” mentioned the report. “Nonetheless, utilization of AI throughout features and use circumstances continues to be low, with solely 35 per cent broad adopters (i.e., greater than three fashions in manufacturing at scale) amongst enterprises.”
The report additional mentioned AI adoption in India is distinguished in sectors corresponding to communication, OTT and gaming (55 per cent); expertise (48 per cent); and monetary companies (39 per cent).
“Because of the availability of huge quantities of information and the flexibility to leverage AI to unravel issues at scale, adoption in giant enterprises is way increased than in smaller enterprises,” the report identified.