Speaking to CNBC-TV18 at the sidelines of the India AI Impact Summit, Krithivasan dismissed fears around AI-led job erosion, saying, “There is no need to panic… Every time there is a disruption, the work expands.”
He said while AI may bring productivity gains of 20-30% in traditional IT services work, enterprises are unlikely to reduce headcount, instead they would use efficiency gains to address backlogs and accelerate adoption.
Also read: India’s AI advantage lies in scale and adoption, not compute power: Qualcomm CEO
Addressing concerns about decoupling of headcount and revenue growth, Krithivasan said the industry must pivot towards outcome-based pricing models rather than labour-linked billing.
“It’s not a challenge… It’s the way the industry is moving towards, and we ought to adapt,” he said, maintaining that overall demand would expand, not shrink.
“We believe the pie will increase… There will be much more work to be done,” he said, adding that AI will create new roles and applications rather than eliminate opportunities.
Also read: AI-led efficiency gains may drive higher enterprise tech spends: Tech Mahindra
Krithivasan also revealed that TCS is already executing advanced AI use cases with global clients. “For instance, some of our clients, we are doing a drug discovery using AI or claims process automation using AI,” he said.
He added that enterprises must modernise data, workflows and technology stacks before leveraging AI at scale to create fresh demand across multiple layers from model building and orchestration to intelligent agents and new AI-enabled services.
According to Krithivasan, TCS is positioning itself to operate across the AI stack, from infrastructure to intelligence layers.“We believe that you will be able to participate more in the AI ecosystem if you operate across multiple layers,” he said.
The chief executive believes that greater participation across infrastructure, model and application layers would allow TCS to “add more value” and increase revenue opportunities.
The company recently announced partnerships, including one with AMD and is also investing in data centre infrastructure. Krithivasan confirmed that the strategy marks a structural shift.
Calling it a turning point, he said, “It definitely is a pivotal moment for us. Not only are we investing in infrastructure, we are also getting more acquisitive,” adding that TCS is pursuing acquisitions “at speed and scale.”
On infrastructure, Krithivasan said developments are progressing ahead of schedule. Referring to data centre expansion and hyperscaler conversations, he said, “I can tell you that it’s actually moving much faster than what we anticipated.”
He said that India’s AI data centre demand is set to accelerate sharply, with the country requiring “a capacity of at least 10 gigawatts” by 2030, while the current committed capacity is around five gigawatts.
Krithivasan added that India’s relatively lower power costs, which are about 30% cheaper, could position it as a key hub not just for inferencing, but also for global model training.
He estimated that each gigawatt of AI data centre capacity could attract investment of up to $40 billion, highlighting the scale of the opportunity.
Shares of Tata Consultancy Services Ltd were trading 1.12% down at ₹2,687 as of 1.39 pm. The stock has declined 30.65% in the past year.
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