A recent analysis released on Monday, which surveyed IT leaders in the Asia Pacific region regarding their organizations’ readiness for artificial intelligence (AI) technology, found that Indian IT leaders are the most confident in this regard.
In contrast to Asia-Pacific, where only 56% of IT leaders are certain that their infrastructure can support AI, over eight out of ten (85%) Indian IT leaders believe that their current IT infrastructure is ready for the demands of AI, according to the technology company Equinix’s 2023 Global Tech Trends Survey.
The research is released at a time when the enterprise and government sectors have witnessed notable advancements in the implementation of AI. Furthermore, 2022 marked the mainstream adoption of generative and conversational AI, despite the fact that these tools and technology had been around for a while. OpenAI products like Dall.E-2 and ChatGPT made it possible for even more individuals to benefit from AI’s capabilities.
According to the survey, AI has been adopted in practically every industry area in India over the past year or so. Over 90% of Indian IT decision-makers surveyed stated they were looking to benefit from AI and were either using it now or planned to use it for a number of important tasks. According to the survey, the areas where organizations are most likely to use AI, or plan to use it, are IT operations (93%), e-commerce (93%), and customer experience (92%).
The report also revealed that among Indian IT leaders, quality control and management (73%) is the most common use case for digital twins, which are virtual representations of actual entities or processes. Next in order are logistical planning (47%), predictive maintenance (54%), product development and re-design (56%), systems planning (51%), and operational performance optimization (63%).
Indeed, several recent studies have also highlighted the enthusiasm that Indian businesses have exhibited for implementing AI. As per a recent report released in June by the multinational consulting firm PwC, there is a noticeable upward trend in the adoption of analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) by Indian companies, with a current implementation rate of 54%. Business leaders attribute their competitive advantage to the adoption of AI to increased innovation and faster time to market.
India was placed sixth in terms of investments received by companies providing AI-based goods and services in 2022, according to a different report published by the Stanford AI Index 2023. Over $3.24 billion was invested in AI startups in India, more than in South Korea, Germany, Canada, or Australia combined. In terms of AI investments received, India lags behind the US, China, the UK, and Israel, the report stated.
However, the Equinix study revealed that there are significant barriers preventing the wider use of AI solutions in India. IT leaders identified a number of reasons why they would not embrace a more advanced technology like AI. The largest problem was seen as an increase in OPEX expenses (46%), which was followed by a lack of internal expertise (42%), a sluggish implementation (37%), and a detrimental effect on reputation (25%).
The PwC report also noted that adopting AI has its share of difficulties, including the cost of investing in digital technology, the need to plan ahead in order to connect the organization’s goals with the digital transformation, and the more significant issue of actually integrating these technologies.
Notably, despite the fact that many businesses are placing bets on generative AI, Arundhati Bhattacharya, the chairman and CEO of Salesforce India, stated in a June 20th interview with Mint that she thinks the cost of generative AI tools will be crucial to realizing their full commercial potential. In contrast to individuals, organizations must also possess a certain level of digital maturity in order to successfully use generative AI since the goal is to extract intelligence from data in a way that will provide profound insights, the speaker stated in the interview.
The Asia-Pacific area is still strong and is expected to contribute around 70% of the increase in artificial intelligence worldwide in 2023, according to the Equinix report. It also revealed that, within the next 12 months, 58% of Indian companies operating in this field intend to grow into other nations.
In a June 2018 analysis, IT trade association Nasscom and consulting firm EY estimated that by 2025, the use of AI by Indian businesses may boost the country’s GDP by $500 billion.
