AI spending to continue amid geopolitical uncertainty, says Gurnani

AIONOS Co-Founder C P Gurnani said companies will continue investing in AI and digital technologies despite geopolitical uncertainty and rising operational costs.

Indian companies across sectors will continue to invest in artificial intelligence (AI) despite their cost of operations rising due to the West Asian conflict impacting oil prices, said CP Gurnani, cofounder and vice chairman of AI operating systems provider AIONOS. The firm has partnered with European digital services major Inetum to set up Inetum India to cater to the domestic market.

 

The top executive noted that the tie-up underscored the importance of AI for companies in the face of global, geopolitical headwinds, as well as domestic level austerity measures.

 

"The temporary pain is that the West Asian crisis is causing nervousness in most of the boardrooms around the world. But we all know that pain is temporary... we all know that businesses will need technology, businesses will need services and businesses need to be competitive, and businesses want to grow," he told Business Standard in an interaction on Wednesday.

 

Inetum India will primarily support the the French major across its core markets of France, Belgium, Bulgaria, Poland, the UK and Ireland.

 

Jacques Pommeraud, chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of Inetum, noted that Europe remained under-developed in terms of adopting technology and digitising.

 

"Europe is under-modernised compared to the US, China and others. There's a strong need to digitalise and to adopt technology. Just to give you one number, public cloud, which is a technology that is more than 20 years old. On average, today across Europe, only 50 per cent of companies use public cloud... So the challenge nowadays is to digitalise more, adopt more technologies, and the new thing, of course, is AI," he said.

 

The India arm will scale up Inetum’s offshore capabilities and raise competitiveness amid global peers.

 

AIONOS, the AI-based joint venture backed by InterGlobe Enterprises and Assago Group, will be the exclusive partner to establish and scale Inetum India. The company said it will bring its AI-native capabilities, technology stack and operational model. Inetum India will integrate existing employees already present locally, while building high-performing offshore teams in India.