IBM’s AI platform watsonx largely designed and developed in India, says MD Sandip Patel

India plays a critical role in global tech major IBM’s big bet on artificial intelligence and is a very critical part of any technology evolution done by the company, Sandip Patel, MD, IBM India & South Asia told CNBC-TV18 in a conversation on the sidelines of its annual flagship event IBM Think.

With a massive focus on AI, globally, IBM recently laid out a 10-year roadmap to tap into the opportunities in this space, a large part of it being the launch of its watsonx platform. For IBM, the focus is on enterprise AI to enable businesses to develop and deploy enterprise-ready AI at scale. It’s this strategy, where India plays an important role for IBM.

"India tends to be a fore runner in innovation. As we look at new technologies, we see a lot of that innovation being driven with clients in India. We are innovating in India, for India and for the world. Here, the 'for the world' piece is what we do with software, research & systems labs in India with Indian talent & served to rest of the world," Patel said.

In fact, a large part of the design and development of watsonx happened in India. "A lot of our software and research labs in India were very involved in the design & development of Watsonx," he added.

Patel said that he is bullish on the technology prospects in India given the trend with digitisation and automation.

However, he emphasised that AI has to be ethical and sensitive to data privacy. "If not handled well, AI can be dangerous and we can't afford that as a business," Patel said at a press briefing at the event.

When questioned on the importance of ethical AI or AI for good, and discussions the company is having with policymakers in India on this, Patel said that it is very important for policy and norms to evolve to ensure technology is always used for the good of society at large and for businesses and enterprises appropriately. "Dialogue on that is starting," he said.

"There is a conscious recognition that ethical AI is important. We have been very active in that dialogue. There are certain principals we go by, where the data and insights are owned by users of it, which is the clients and how we use it for insights and how we develop it is transparent and explainable. These are the kind of norms that have to evolve consistently. We are in conversations with the government directly and through industry associations like NASSCOM & others," Patel said.

But the conversation around AI has also revolved around its impact on jobs and the workforce. IBM’s global CEO Arvind Krishna has been vocal about the fact that AI could replace non-customer facing roles where he said in an interview that he expects 7,800 jobs to be impacted at IBM and that 30 percent of non-customer facing roles could be replaced by AI and automation within the next five years.

However, Patel said that while AI improves productivity, cuts down repetitive tasks that need manual intervention, it also enables enterprises to scale up more work in a market like India to skill people to drive more efficiency.

"AI can help in a market like India if you have right skilling in place, will contribute to a higher per capita GDP in terms of what skilled labour can produce in India & the world," he added.

IBM’s focus in India is not limited to just AI. The company has also been growing its hybrid cloud business and is growing quantum technology. While it has seen significant growth in hybrid cloud space for IBM in India, which is widely adopted and at a stage of maturity in India, the artificial intelligence segment will shape & gain momentum as Watsonx achieves a stage of maturity. But with quantum, he says India is still at a stage of experimentation and will take a few years before it becomes mainstream.