Its India’s Moment: Fierce hunt for AI talent reaches India, salaries being doubled
A recruiting frenzy for artificial intelligence is sweeping the globe, from Silicon Valley to Europe, Asia, and beyond. While tech behemoths like Google and Baidu entice engineers to build their own AI engines, companies in almost every other industry – from healthcare and finance to entertainment – are also hiring to avoid being caught off guard by industry shifts.
Perhaps more than any other country, India exemplifies how the demand for talent outstrips supply. The country of 1.4 billion people has traditionally served as the tech industry’s back office, providing reinforcements in the event of an emergency. However, even the world’s most populous country is running out of the data scientists, machine-learning specialists, and skilled engineers that businesses require.
There is an “insatiable need for talent,” according to Rahul Shah, co-founder of WalkWater Talent Advisors, a top-level headhunter. “AI cannot be outsourced; it is essential to the organisation.”
Recruitment stories border on the ridiculous. In one recent search managed by Shah’s agency, the new employer more than quadrupled a candidate’s salary. Flexcar’s chief technology officer, Freedom Dumlao, interviewed one engineer who claimed a competing suitor offered him a BMW motorbike as a sign-on prize. “That’s a line I’m not comfortable approaching,” Dumlao remarked.
The Indian IT sector is based on an abundant supply of low-wage labour. firms such as Tata Consultancy Services pioneered the contemporary outsourcing model, in which Western firms hire engineers from halfway across the world to handle support, services, and software, generally at a fraction of the cost of local personnel. According to the trade body Nasscom, there are currently over five million individuals working in AI services in India.
Google, Microsoft, and Amazon established their own businesses in India, employing thousands of Indians. Google, now part of Alphabet, began in the nation with five employees in 2004 and currently employs roughly 10,000 people.
It’s just going to get worse. Last year, India added 66 tech innovation centres, also known as global capability centres (GCCs) or captives, bringing the total to nearly 1,600. These GCCs, which used to handle activities such as IT support and customer service, have evolved into in-house centres for business-critical technologies such as AI.
“ChatGPT has pushed the larger domain of artificial intelligence out of stealth mode,” said Vikram Ahuja, co-founder of ANSR Consulting, which assists firms in designing and establishing technological centres.
Last year, Dallas-based ANSR established 18 such captives in India; Ahuja expects that number to increase to 25 this year. “Many enterprises with India captives are hastening their AI road map in order to gain a competitive advantage.”
Companies of all sizes are attempting to determine how AI will effect their fortunes. Can ChatGPT forecast future demand with newfound precision? Will deep learning technologies outperform any doctor today in medical diagnosis? Could trading algorithms be fine-tuned to the point where finance firms with the best technologies drive their competitors out of business?
“The talent crunch is going to worsen in the next year or two,” said Biswajeet Mahapatra, lead analyst at Forrester Research.
According to a February Nasscom research, India has the second biggest pool of highly qualified AI, machine learning, and big data expertise behind the United States. It produces 16% of the world’s AI talent pool, putting it in the top three talent marketplaces with the United States and China.
According to Dumlao of Flexcar, a Boston-based car subscription startup, this is insufficient. He’s been in Bangalore for three months, attempting to put together a team of data engineers and computer-vision specialists for the start-up’s data science hub.
Flexcar’s staff of 60 engineers contributes to the development of AI systems that identify damage when vehicles are returned. The company has adopted ChatGPT and is testing a chatbot to assist technicians in diagnosing and repairing autos by asking trained bots.
“Bangalore has incredible data engineering talent, and the AI talent hunt is only going to intensify,” Dumlao added. The difficult part is convincing coveted engineers that his start-up is the best alternative for them. “Wherever there is a concentration of talent, the freshest ideas and the newest innovations will sprout,” he remarked.
Dumlao’s rivals come in a variety of forms and sizes. Falabella, a Chilean retailer, is the first in Latin America to open a captive in India for data analytics, AI, and machine learning. “We have to compete with the best of the best,” said Ashish Grover, the company’s chief information officer located in Santiago.
The efforts are bearing fruit: a customised customer platform currently accounts for more than half of the additional sales generated through digital targeting. An AI-powered recommendation system increased mobile app conversions thrice.
Lowe’s captive tech hub in Bangalore aids in the integration of AI into its goods, and all of its technology will be designed “AI first,” according to Ankur Mittal, managing director of Lowe’s India. For example, the team’s predictive algorithms aid in pricing decisions and fine-tuning search tools on Lowes.com.
Because this is India, many workers are attempting to retrain in order to land a coveted job in AI. Data engineer Deepak Kapoor, who works for a start-up called Thinkbumblebee Analytics, is studying computer vision and large language models to move into deep learning, where job opportunities are plentiful.
Lowe’s captive tech hub in Bangalore aids in the integration of AI into its goods, and all of its technology will be designed “AI first,” according to Ankur Mittal, managing director of Lowe’s India. For example, the team’s predictive algorithms aid in pricing decisions and fine-tuning search tools on Lowes.com.
In India, many workers are attempting to retrain in order to land a coveted job in AI. Deepak Kapoor, a data engineer at Thinkbumblebee Analytics, is researching computer vision and huge language models in order to transition into deep learning, where employment prospects abound.
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