Kamal Ghorui
New Delhi: Even as AI defines a paradigm shift for the IT sector, Tata Sons chairman N. Chandrasekaran said it represents the single biggest opportunity for the technology industry.“Since I come from the IT industry, let me say one word about IT,” he said at the India AI Impact Summit 2026. “In my opinion, this is the biggest opportunity for the technology sector and the IT industry.”
He emphasized that the real value of the IT industry lies in its deep contextual understanding of every enterprise’s business and technology landscape — and in its ability to make the right technology work within complex processes, ecosystems, supplier networks, customer connections, and enterprise stacks.According to him, AI significantly expands that role. IT is now positioned to integrate AI and AI agents into workflows, reimagine processes end-to-end, and drive transformation at scale. This is not just about deploying technology, he suggested, but about reshaping how enterprises operate and compete — enabling them to strengthen their moats and realize their long-term vision.Chandrasekaran framed this shift in broader terms. “We are standing at a defining moment,” he said. “This is the age of abundant intelligence. The scarce resources now are trust, stewardship, and human capability.”In this new era, he argued, success will depend not merely on access to compute or data, but on how responsibly intelligence is deployed, how thoughtfully it is governed, and how effectively human potential is amplified.As India positions itself at the center of the global AI transformation, the Tata Group is placing a multi-layered bet on intelligence infrastructure.“We have established India’s first large-scale AI-optimized infrastructure for next-generation AI training and inference,” Chandrasekaran said.“I am happy to announce that we have partnered with OpenAI to build an initial 100-megawatt capacity, scalable to 1 gigawatt.” The infrastructure is designed as purpose-built AI compute optimized for training and inference workloads.The group has also announced a collaboration with AMD to combine “world-class architecture with Tata’s infrastructure strength, engineering power, and solutions capability — creating sustainable, high-density AI capacity in India for global customers.”Beyond infrastructure, the second pillar is data.“We are building an AI data insights platform,” he said, adding that it will be built on diverse Indian datasets layered on top of foundational models to ensure intelligence reflects India’s linguistic, cultural, economic, and sectoral diversity.“Intelligence must become accessible across the full diversity of Indian contexts,” he noted.The third pillar focuses on enterprise transformation. Tata Consultancy Services and Tata Communications are jointly building what he described as an “AI operating system for industries.”“We will create agentic, industry-specific solutions for every sector,” he said, adding that the platforms will embed AI agents directly into workflows across industries. “We are already well on this journey and will work with partners to launch and take these solutions to enterprises across the globe.”The final pillar moves into semiconductors.“Thanks to the Prime Minister’s vision, we have made a serious foray into chips and semiconductors,” Chandrasekaran said. The next step is to design domain-centric, AI-optimized chips tailored for specific industries, beginning with the automotive sector.“Our focus will begin with the automotive sector,” he said, aligning the group’s semiconductor ambitions with the future of AI-driven mobility.
