Capgemini to double data, AI teams to 60,000 in 3 yrs: Nisheeth Srivastava

Capgemini, the French information technology (IT) major, is strengthening its data and artificial intelligence teams as it doubles down on generative AI (GenAI). It has some 180,000 employees in India. NISHEETH SRIVASTAVA, chief technology and innovation officer (CTIO) of Capgemini in India, spoke with Ayushman Baruah about GenAI. Edited excerpts from an interview in Bengaluru.

What are Capgemini's plans to train employees on the foundations of GenAI?

Capgemini is a strong player in the data and AI market, bringing value to clients across industries and delivering projects at scale thanks to our data and AI consultants and engineers, our deep industry expertise, and our industrialised delivery assets. We will double our data and AI teams to 60,000 in three years as well as train most of our workforce. Leveraging our global data and AI campus, we will train most of our employees, starting with our data and AI teams, our developers and testers on GenAI development tools to ensure we make the best use of the technology’s benefits. 

The training will encompass all businesses, leveraging GenAI to yield advantages for our clients in areas like business services and cloud infrastructure services. Through these initiatives, our goal is to integrate artificial intelligence training as an essential element within our development and training curriculum.

How many employees have been trained already in GenAI?

We have completed nearly 30,000 trainings around GenAI and aim to increase it further in coming months. Capgemini has about 180,000 employees in India, of which nearly 50 per cent are working on technologies related to AI and GenAI. By leveraging new technologies, such as automation and AI, we help our employees increase their productivity and augment their capabilities. These tools can enable us to move our employees into higher value-added roles and [they] can help us address the shortage of technology talent, accelerating the dual transition towards a digital and sustainable world.

How do you help the company stay ahead of the curve?

As Capgemini’s CTIO in India, two of my key responsibilities are to track over 1,700 technologies and anticipate their future business impact for our clients; and to co-innovate with and help our clients differentiate themselves across industries and their value chains. Leveraging a diverse blend of IT, engineering, and design capabilities, I contribute to the development of cutting-edge solutions and foster collaborative advancements in the digital landscape. Our strategic partnership with startups, technology innovators, research institutes and academia allows us to widen the scope of research and innovation and help us and our clients stay ahead of the curve.

The world around us is already designed as a large biological and anthropomorphic neural network, and my job is to connect the dots on the foundations of technology and industry. The confluence and interplay of technologies such as immersive reality, AI/ machine learning, internet of things offer immense value when it comes to innovation and implementation of a new concept. For instance, the evolution and adoption of digital twins across industries will bank on a combination of computer vision/AI, immersive reality, and engineering technologies. A cross-industry approach to identifying use cases and finding solutions will improve efficiency and avoid making the same evolutionary errors that others did.

Which verticals have a higher demand for AI?

Capgemini is seeing a huge demand for AI to be embedded in its solutions from verticals like BFSI (banking, financial services, insurance), automotive, consumer products and retail, telecom, aerospace and defence, energy transition and utilities, life sciences, manufacturing, and media and entertainment.

What is Capgemini’s take on having AI regulations in India?

Capgemini is a keen observer of global developments in the regulatory landscape. As a responsible business, we are monitoring the evolution of the technology and applicable local regulations to regularly update our internal guidelines on GenAI. We also promote responsible behaviour in the use of AI and GenAI by all participants in the ecosystem. We have a code of ethics for AI that we have been using for many years for all our client engagements across industries.