India Under Spotlight As Tech Giants Ramp Up AI Talent Hunt

The AI-related hiring scenario in India illustrates how the rush for talent is outstripping supply.

India is the second-largest pool of highly-skilled AI, machine learning, and big data talent.

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The demand for data scientists, machine learning specialists, and skilled engineers is rapidly increasing due to an AI hiring frenzy taking place around the world. From Silicon Valley to Europe, Asia, and beyond, tech giants like Google and Baidu, as well as companies in other fields such as healthcare, finance, and entertainment, are staffing up to avoid getting blindsided by shifts in their industries, reported Bloomberg.

The AI-related hiring scenario in India illustrates how the rush for talent is outstripping supply. India's tech industry is built on a plentiful supply of affordable workers, and now, even the world's most populous nation is running out of the skilled engineers, data scientists, and machine-learning specialists that companies are looking for.

India added 66 tech innovation centres in 2022, taking the total to nearly 1,600. These global capability centres (GCCs), which used to handle tasks like IT support and customer support, have morphed into in-house centres for business-critical technology, such as AI. In the first three months of 2023, many big companies, including AllianceBernstein Holding LP, Avis Budget Group Inc., Warner Bros. Discovery Inc., and Pratt & Whitney, set up R&D hubs in Bangalore, joining the likes of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Walmart Inc.

ANSR Consulting, which helps design and establish technology centres for corporations, has driven the larger domain of artificial intelligence out of stealth mode, according to its co-founder, Vikram Ahuja. Last year, the Dallas-based ANSR set up 18 such captives in India, and Ahuja expects that number to hit 25 this year. "Many enterprises which have India captives are accelerating their AI roadmap to derive a competitive edge," he said.

India is the second-largest pool of highly-skilled AI, machine learning, and big data talent, according to Nasscom's February report, after the US. It produces 16 per cent of the world's AI talent pool, placing it among the top three talent markets with the US and China. Biswajeet Mahapatra, principal analyst at Forrester Research Inc., warns that the talent crunch is going to worsen in the next year or two.