Happiest Minds Technologies to double investments in AI in 24 months

Ashok Soota-led Happiest Minds Technologies aims to double its investments in artificial intelligence (AI) over the next two years, top company officials have said. They, however, refused to disclose the amount the company intends to pump in. 

The company’s analytics and AI offering includes implementation of advanced analytics using AI, machine learning and statistical models, and engineering big data platforms to handle large volumes of data. All these help in creating actionable insights.

During FY23, revenues from analytics and AI stood at 12.2 per cent.    

“Given the way our industry is moving, most of our R&D and training investments will move towards AI, which is a logical response to the way the market is moving at this point in time. There will be more and more investments constantly happening in AI because that is where predominantly the digital curve or the edge of the digital is moving. All of our investments will be funnelled towards AI,” Sridhar Mantha, chief technology officer (CTO), Happiest Minds, told Business Standard.       

To drive these investments, the Bengaluru-based company is aiming to hire about 1,300 engineers across the globe in FY24. Majority of them will be based in India, said Joseph Anantharaju, executive vice-chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) - product engineering services. Of the 1,300 people, 300-400 will be campus hires and be onboarded between July and August.

“Given that AI cuts across sectors and technology implementations, it is no longer considered a discretionary spend,” said Mantha.

He added, “Today AI is like the iPhone moment in the industry. When the iPhone came, it was not meant for a specific industry like retail or banking or entertainment. AI is such a powerful horizontal technology.”

Despite the global macro-economic uncertainties, Anantharaju said that the edutech vertical continues to invest in technology. For Happiest Minds, edutech is the largest vertical that contributed 23.2 per cent to the total revenues during FY23. 

“The whole remote working and digitalisation has pushed them in a certain direction and all of them are looking at getting more data-oriented and using more analytics. So, they will also move their investments from one area to another and you will see that across verticals,” said Anantharaju.     

“I would like to stress that AI is the most strategic area for us right now. We have got a couple of task forces and teams going and we report to the board almost on a quarterly basis on the progress we have made. We chart our plans on a monthly basis,” said Anantharaju.   

Earlier this year, Happiest Minds acquired Madurai-based Sri Mookambika Infosolutions (SMI) for Rs 111 crore.
 

SMI provided product engineering services to its US customers around digital data platform services. They include analytics and AI. The acquisition is expected to strengthen Happiest Minds’ push towards AI.