India key global proving ground for industrialising AI 'extraordinary scale': Kyndryl Chairman

New Delhi, Feb 19 (PTI) India is a key global proving ground for industrialising AI at 'extraordinary scale' with the country's digital experience offering vital lessons on implementing national systems across essential public services and private sector, Kyndryl Chairman & CEO Martin Schroeter said on Thursday.

How to make AI work in the real world for real world impact, not as a demo or a pilot experiment but in day to day operations under real constraints, with people working alongside AI agents at national and enterprise scale is a question that policymakers, business leaders, technologists and citizens have today, Schroeter said here in an address at the AI Impact Summit.

"Scale means something here in India that's different than anywhere else where failure of these systems is just not an option," he said, adding when AI moves from labs into the systems that power economies, hospitals, banks, transportation networks, energy grids and governments getting it wrong is not just an inconvenience but it actually impacts lives.

Stating that "these systems sit at the heart of what this summit represents -- the people, the planet and the progress -- that we're all working on", he said, "India is one of the world's most important proving grounds for industrialising AI at an extraordinary scale." Under the leadership of Prime Minister Modi, India has recognised AI as a strategic national priority, building policy and digital and talent foundations needed to support innovation and again at scale, Schroeter noted.

"Through initiatives like Digital India and the India AI mission and investments in digital public infrastructure, India has positioned itself not just as an adopter of AI, but as a global contributor to how AI can be deployed responsibly and inclusively," he added.

He stated that AI powered platforms like the unified lending interface are expanding access to credit at scale, reducing loan times from weeks to minutes, and while improving transparency and inclusion.

"India's digital experience offers an important lesson for the world when technology must operate at a national scale across public services and financial systems, healthcare, transportation and energy," Schroeter said.

Reliability, governance and human integration are not features, they are prerequisites, he asserted.

"The question that we continuously come back to at Kyndryl, and one that I suspect many of the policymakers and the business leaders and the technologists and the citizens here among us have is, how do we actually make AI work in the real world for real world impact, not a demo, not a pilot or an experiment, and not in theory, but in day to day operations, under real constraints, with people working alongside AI agents at national and enterprise scale," Schroeter said.

Commenting on what has impeded AI adoption at scale, he said it is not an innovation problem but is a "readiness problem" as AI is not industrialised today.

"We've conducted global studies with business and IT leaders countless times, and our research shows that while more more than two thirds of global organisations are already heavily invested in AI, almost half still struggle to see meaningful returns. In India alone, 75 per cent said their innovation efforts stall after the proof of concept stage," he said.

Based on the company's research and experience with its customers both in regulated and unregulated industries, he said,"The leading indicator why projects stall is not because the technology is not smart -- it is brilliant -- it is because we haven't industrialised it yet. AI today is not industrialised." Highlighting partnership of Kendryl -- a leading provider of mission-critical enterprise technology services -- with many of India's leading companies and government agencies, he said,"Our local engineering teams have built scalable platforms for banking, for citizen services, for telecoms and for airports to handle the millions of users and transactions every day." He cited the example of Bengaluru International Airport, where the company applied "agentic AI to shift IT operations from a reactive response to a proactive resilience, supporting, self healing capabilities that improve operational predictability and strengthen trust in the airport's digital backbone".

"Through our community partnerships in India, we're helping build digital and cybersecurity skills because safe, responsible AI adoption depends on people being ready, not just technology because sophisticated adversaries are already using AI to move at machine speed," Schroeter said.

The company is opening a new cyber defense operation center in Bangalore to "detect and contain threats that already start at the edge of the network before they become disruptions".

He reiterated the company's commitment to helping India and its partners around the world implement AI at scale to drive people, planet and progress outcomes. PTI RKL DR DR