Dell Technologies at epicenter of data-intensive technology like AI: Ohrie

India is a crucial market for Dell Technologies, both in terms of size and future growth potential. As India leads the digital revolution globally, Dell is looking to capitalise on various opportunities. Alok Ohrie, president and managing director, Dell Technologies India, talks about how the technology company is addressing the needs of the Indian market and tapping into the artificial intelligence (AI) wave, in an email interview, with Ayushman Baruah. Edited excerpts: 

Can you elaborate on the opportunities for Dell with the whole digital push in India?

India's digital revolution is evident across various sectors, from cashless transactions at local stores to a nationwide networked highway toll system utilising Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and Automatic Number Plate Recognition. India stands out for its ambitious efforts to construct an inclusive, high-value, and cost-effective digital public infrastructure for its 1.4 billion citizens. The continuous advancements of emerging technologies, particularly AI and Generative AI (GenAI) in India, are anticipated to generate a demand surge akin to the one witnessed during the cloud revolution. To address this critical need of businesses, Dell Technologies has been continuously innovating and expanding its capabilities and product portfolio.

We are also focused on industry partnerships, like the one we recently did with Nvidia – aimed at simplifying the adoption of GenAI models within business environments. This partnership focuses on enabling businesses to securely build and utilise AI models on-premises, empowering them to achieve faster and more secure outcomes in areas such as customer service, market intelligence, and enterprise search capabilities. Additionally, we also announced a partnership with Nokia to advance network cloud transformation and private 5G.

Dell's infrastructure solutions power some of the major government and public initiatives in India, including Aadhaar, Passport Seva, the GST platform, the State Bank of India, and the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), managing operations on a massive scale.

How are you addressing the specific needs of the Indian market?
 

India is a crucial market for Dell Technologies, both in its current size and future growth potential. The impact of digitalisation on businesses, specifically the ones reliant on technology, underscores the immense opportunities in the country. With a large number of enterprises, small and midsize businesses (SMBs), and homegrown businesses, India presents a substantial addressable market for technology solutions. We are committed to supporting businesses of all sizes in navigating economic uncertainties by providing tailored solutions.
 

We have also seen that a lot of businesses are restricted in deploying the best available solutions in the market, due to their budget, operational and workforce constraints. Addressing this, our “as-a-service” model offers businesses the advantage of reducing capital expenditures and shifting to a more predictable, operating expense-based model. At Dell, we offer a unique combination of infrastructure, application delivery and management solutions that make IT scalable, efficient, secure and sustainable.

Reports say Dell is calling its employees back to the office. What’s the strategy for India?
 

The world is changing, accelerated by the transformative influence of GenAI. This plays to Dell Technologies' strengths, and we are well-positioned to seize this once-in-a-lifetime technology revolution. Doing so will require us to collaborate, challenge each other in healthy ways, learn from each other, and stay informed to make strategic, quick decisions. The key to doing all this is relationships we believe are best built through in-person connection, paired with a flexible approach.
 

We shared with team members our updated hybrid work policy. Team members in hybrid roles will be onsite at a Dell Technologies office at least 39 days per quarter or 3 days a week on average. In today’s global technology revolution, we believe in-person connections paired with a flexible approach are critical to drive innovation and value differentiation.

How is Dell capitalising on the AI wave?
 

As a leader in computer and storage, Dell Technologies is at the epicenter of data-intensive technology such as AI. Dell provides customers with AI solutions and expertise while also bringing together the larger ecosystem of partners like Huggingface, and Run.AI that unlock the power of AI, automate intelligent decisions, and help define our customers’ path to the future.
 

At Dell Technologies, we are committed to integrating AI-created efficiencies into our products, to keep up with the industry and build competitive advantage. Currently, every major product line in Dell utilizes machine intelligence as a core component of modern product development or solution. In fact, Dell has close to 1000 AI/ML-related projects going on at any time. We use AI/ML extensively in our services business also, leveraging data and telemetry to solve specific business problems. We have had incredible success — reducing time to market on technology implementations and time to close in support cases, including streamlining parts availability.
 

Our AI strategy revolves around four areas: (a) AI in making our products smarter by embedding AI directly into them (b) AI in designing our products/ solutions to deliver the outcomes that customer needs; (c) AI for improving our own business processes with AI; and (d) AI with collaborating with an ecosystem of partners to provide solutions that facilitate development, operations, and lifecycle management of AI applications.