TLDR: Dr. Amith Singhee of IBM Research India discusses the critical role of AI in India’s pursuit of a $1 trillion digital economy. He highlights challenges like data complexity and trust deficits, and outlines IBM’s strategy, including hybrid cloud-AI, BharatGen collaboration, and a focus on India-centric AI models and skill development, to drive transformative AI-driven growth across various sectors.
India’s ambition to achieve a $1 trillion digital economy hinges significantly on the widespread adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) within its enterprises. Dr. Amith Singhee, Director of IBM Research India and CTO for IBM India & South Asia, in an exclusive interview, detailed IBM’s comprehensive strategy to navigate the roadblocks and capitalize on the opportunities presented by AI in the Indian context.
Dr. Singhee identified key barriers to large-scale AI adoption, including data and IT complexity, a prevailing trust deficit in AI systems, and challenges in deploying and governing AI use cases. IBM’s approach to address these issues involves transforming clients into ‘AI-first’ enterprises by integrating AI into existing infrastructures, workflows, and processes, leveraging trusted enterprise data.
A cornerstone of IBM’s strategy is its hybrid cloud–AI model, which combines the flexibility of cloud solutions with the reliability of AI built on responsible frameworks. This approach allows enterprises to modernize seamlessly while retaining trusted systems. Furthermore, the interview highlighted IBM’s full AI stack, including watsonx for data management and model deployment, Granite for open-sourced, cost-efficient models trained on enterprise data, IBM Consulting for workflow redesign, and hybrid cloud offerings for scalable AI infrastructure.
A significant initiative is the collaboration with BharatGen, which Dr. Singhee described as a pivotal move towards scaling AI’s impact for India’s linguistic and cultural diversity. This partnership aims to develop sovereign multimodal AI and large language models tailored for native Indian language speakers, addressing critical gaps in local relevance and trust. The application of these India-centric AI models is envisioned across diverse sectors such as education, agriculture, banking, healthcare, and citizen services, fostering locally grounded, globally scalable, and transparent AI.
Addressing India’s unique needs, Dr. Singhee emphasized that AI must adapt to the country’s diverse culture, language, geography, and socio-economic strata. He noted that while India’s 1.12 billion mobile connections and UPI-led transactions generate unparalleled datasets, existing large language models are often insufficient for India’s complex challenges. IBM is actively engaged with the Indian ecosystem, including government, academia, industry, and non-profit organizations, through initiatives like the AI Alliance and partnerships with innovators like BharatGen, to develop purpose-built models and adapt AI tools.
Regarding the future of work in the AI era, Dr. Singhee stressed the importance of ‘hybrid skills,’ encompassing data engineering, AI engineering, ethical reasoning, and domain-specific expertise. IBM India is preparing talent through its flagship platform, IBM SkillsBuild, offering over 1,000 courses. Academic research collaborations provide students with industry exposure to AI, Hybrid Cloud, and Quantum technologies, while also supporting curriculum design aligned with technological trends.
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To tackle the trust deficit, particularly in the Indian financial services sector, IBM is embedding responsible AI practices, explainability, and governance frameworks into its offerings. By ensuring data residency and regulatory compliance, and focusing on smaller, domain-specific models for higher accuracy and reduced risk, IBM aims to restore confidence and enable scaled AI adoption in finance. Dr. Singhee also mentioned quantum computing as an opportunity for India to lead in developing algorithms for complex challenges. Ultimately, IBM’s hybrid cloud–AI strategy is positioned as a central driver for India’s $1 trillion digital economy, offering a trusted path for enterprises and governments to scale technology securely and inclusively.
