From IT to AI: Kris Gopalakrishnan charts India’s next big transformation at BT AI Summit 2025
At the BT AI Summit, Kris Gopalakrishnan highlights AI as a historic inflection point, urging India to harness technology, reskill its workforce, and achieve strategic autonomy.
- Oct 29, 2025,
- Updated Oct 29, 2025 8:14 PM IST
At the BT AI Summit in Bengaluru, Kris Gopalakrishnan, Chairman of Axilor Ventures and Co-founder of Infosys, delivered a compelling vision on how artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to transform India and the world, marking “The next leap beyond IT.” Drawing parallels to the computer revolution six decades ago, he said that AI is a seismic shift that will redefine industries, economies, and individual work patterns.
Gopalakrishnan highlighted AI’s vast potential, noting that similar to past technological disruptions, it will create new opportunities for innovation, efficiency, and growth. However, this transformation demands large-scale reskilling; an estimated 5.5 million IT professionals must be retrained to stay relevant. He argued that AI can exponentially boost productivity, boosting output by two to five times but only if individuals and businesses embrace it actively.
Reflecting on India’s unique position, he urged the country to glean lessons from history and aim for “technology autonomy.” Relying on foreign technology and capital at scale is unsustainable, especially given AI’s multi-billion-dollar investments globally. Gopalakrishnan called for India to build infrastructure like data centres and GPU clusters domestically, while promoting open data ecosystems, such as anonymised healthcare data, to fuel innovation.
The industry expert also highlighted India’s strengths: a young, adaptable workforce experienced in evolving tech landscapes—from mainframes to cloud computing—and a well-capitalised IT industry with mature leadership and loyal clients worldwide. He sees immense potential for new AI-driven products from India, particularly if we build competitive ecosystems similar to India’s success with UPI and Aadhaar.
Yet, he acknowledged challenges, including job displacement in clerical roles, stressing that re-skilling is critical to help workers transition into emerging roles like data annotation, AI model verification, and business process automation.
Finally, on data privacy, Gopalakrishnan said that India must push for robust data protection laws and smart policies to safeguard citizens while fostering innovation.
At the BT AI Summit in Bengaluru, Kris Gopalakrishnan, Chairman of Axilor Ventures and Co-founder of Infosys, delivered a compelling vision on how artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to transform India and the world, marking “The next leap beyond IT.” Drawing parallels to the computer revolution six decades ago, he said that AI is a seismic shift that will redefine industries, economies, and individual work patterns.
Gopalakrishnan highlighted AI’s vast potential, noting that similar to past technological disruptions, it will create new opportunities for innovation, efficiency, and growth. However, this transformation demands large-scale reskilling; an estimated 5.5 million IT professionals must be retrained to stay relevant. He argued that AI can exponentially boost productivity, boosting output by two to five times but only if individuals and businesses embrace it actively.
Reflecting on India’s unique position, he urged the country to glean lessons from history and aim for “technology autonomy.” Relying on foreign technology and capital at scale is unsustainable, especially given AI’s multi-billion-dollar investments globally. Gopalakrishnan called for India to build infrastructure like data centres and GPU clusters domestically, while promoting open data ecosystems, such as anonymised healthcare data, to fuel innovation.
The industry expert also highlighted India’s strengths: a young, adaptable workforce experienced in evolving tech landscapes—from mainframes to cloud computing—and a well-capitalised IT industry with mature leadership and loyal clients worldwide. He sees immense potential for new AI-driven products from India, particularly if we build competitive ecosystems similar to India’s success with UPI and Aadhaar.
Yet, he acknowledged challenges, including job displacement in clerical roles, stressing that re-skilling is critical to help workers transition into emerging roles like data annotation, AI model verification, and business process automation.
Finally, on data privacy, Gopalakrishnan said that India must push for robust data protection laws and smart policies to safeguard citizens while fostering innovation.